RubiStar: Create a Rubric in a Snap!

I'll admit right now that I'd never heard of rubrics until I'd been teaching a few years in a college setting.  Like many people who teach at college level, I had no education background, and the instructors who taught me never used rubrics.  Now that I have been enlightened, I never grade without one.

Grading with a rubric can help speed up grading while keeping feedback consistent and objective. The rubric helps my students know what I am looking for, and helps them understand why they earned the grade that was given.  When I started teaching online, rubrics because even easier to use. It became a matter of clicking boxes and adding my detailed feedback. I have been pleased with the Canvas rubric features.

For those who have never written a rubric before, it can seem overwhelming.  When I first started writing rubrics, I found it stressful.  I never knew how much information to add, how to space out points, or how to make it as objective as possible.  I was so relieved when a friend showed me RubiStar.

RubiStar has been around since 2000, and the website has a very early 2000's internet look to it, but it is a fantastic starting point.  It has an easy to use point and click interface.  All an instructor has to do is answer a few questions, then they are on their way to creating their own custom rubric.  Copy and paste may be used to transfer the rubric over to Canvas once it is done.  Unfortunately, you do need to copy and paste *each* box.  The entire thing cannot be imported at once.  However, once it's done, it never has to be done again.  

For some more information on how to make a rubric using RubiStar, view the video below:

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