Assessment: Rubrics

A rubric is a scoring tool that specifies the criteria for an assignment and the characteristics expected for several levels of quality. Rubrics inform students of the criteria used to evaluate their work and make grading both faster and more consistent. This page contains links to sites that provide resources for designing effective rubrics and examples.

"Scoring Rubrics: What, When and How?" Barbara M. Moskal (Colorado School of Mines). From the online journal Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2000.
This article is an introduction to rubrics for scoring student work. It includes descriptions of different types of scoring rubrics and ways of developing rubrics.
Link: http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=7&n=3

RubiStar.
This site contains an online tutorial and templates for creating rubrics for a wide variety of learning activities.
Link: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

Assessment and Rubric Information (Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators).
A comprehensive site for information about all aspects of rubric design and use. Contains a rubric tutorial, examples of rubrics for many different projects, and links to numerous online resources.
Link: http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/assess.html

“Grading with Rubrics: Developing a Fair and Efficient Assessment Tool,” Deandra Little (University of Virginia Teaching Resource Center).
Directions for creating a grading rubric that is also a teaching tool.
Link: http://trc.virginia.edu/Publications/Teaching_Concerns/Fall_2006/TC_Fall_2006_Little.htm

Links to Examples of Scoring Rubrics (California State University).
Contains links to 29 sites with examples of college-level rubrics for many disciplines.
Link: http://www.calstate.edu/acadaff/sloa/links/rubrics.shtml

The Rubric Bank (Chicago Public Schools).
Although these rubrics are for K-12 classrooms, they may provide useful examples for college instructors.
Link: http://intranet.cps.k12.il.us/Assessments/Ideas_and_Rubrics/Rubric_Bank/rubric_bank.html

The Critical Thinking Rubric (Washington State University).
Contains criteria for assessing students' critical thinking on a paper addressing a problem-based issue.
Link: http://wsuctproject.wsu.edu/ctr.htm

Rubric for Web Projects (Partnership for Lifelong Learning Web Olympics).
Shows the rubric used for scoring in the Web Olympics, which could be useful for assessing web design projects.
Link: http://www.remc11.k12.mi.us/rubric.html

Rubric to Assess a PBL and Rubric (Innovative Designs for Education). PDF/Adobe Acrobat.
Criteria and qualifiers for assessing a rubric.
Link: http://www.idecorp.com/assessrubric.pdf

A Rubric for Rubrics: A Tool for Assessing the Quality and Use of Rubrics in Education, Dr. Bonnie B. Mullinex (Monmouth University).
Another useful rubric for assessing rubrics.
Link: http://its.monmouth.edu/facultyresourcecenter/Rubrics/A Rubric for Rubrics.htm

Selected Rubric Reference Sites, Chris Guenter (California State University-Chico).
Contains inks to 13 sites covering all aspects of rubric design and use.
Link: http://www.csuchico.edu/~cguenter/RubricSites.htm

MSU Resources

Writing Center: http://writing.msu.edu/

Office of Assessment: Director, Kelly Funk, email funk@msu.edu