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How To Setup A Rubric Template

A rubric template* is downloaded then SETUP once by a course co-ordinator to assess a particular assignment. It is then distributed to the assessors to USE for assessing that assignment. This document describes how to SETUP a rubric to assess a specific assignment. (Note: If a rubric has already been setup for you to use in assessing a particular assignment, you should skip to the How to Use the Rubrics instructions.)

*hold your mouse over the word to see a definition.

The procedure can be summarised as follows:

Download one of the generic or standard rubrics from the rubric website then open it in Excel.
On the Rubric worksheet, change the assignment title at the top of the page.
Modify the assessment criteria in column B.
Delete any unused assessment criteria rows.
Adjust the assessment criteria weightings if you wish.
Modify the descriptions in each criteria/rating cell in the table.
Check that your rubric is legible when printed.
Enter or import student names, and specify the number of students who will be assessed.
Distribute your rubric workbook (Excel file) to the assessors.

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First, you need to decide which of the rubrics provided on the rubric website best matches the assignment you will be assessing. Five Standard Rubrics are provided for five common types of assignments. If your assignment is similar to one of the five standard rubrics then it is best to download one of these then modify it to suit your purposes. If however, your assignment is not similar to one of the five standard rubrics (or if it has more assessment criteria than the standard) then you can start with one of the Generic Rubrics (either the 2 column Pass/Fail rubric or the 5 column F/P/CR/D/HD rubric). Download one of the rubrics from this web site to the hard drive of your own computer.
Find the rubric file which you downloaded on your computer’s hard drive. Change its name to associate it with the assignment for which it will be used, i.e.: “assign1-Sonnets.xls”.
Double-click the downloaded file (i.e.: “assign1-Sonnets.xls”). It should open in Microsoft Excel.
When it opens you should get a macro security warning:

Click on Enable Macros.
(If you didn't see the macro security warning)
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Select the first Rubric worksheet tab from the bottom left of the workbook.
At the top of the Rubric worksheet, change the rubric title to the name of your assignment to be assessed, such as “Oral Presentation: Shakespeare’s Sonnets” .
Enter or modify the assessment criteria in column B, along the left of the table.

(If you typed more text than is visible in the cell)
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If you don't want to use all of the assessment criteria provided on the rubric template, you must delete the unused assessment criteria rows.
Check the weightings for each of your assessment criteria.

If you don’t want all your criteria to be equally weighted you can change assessment criteria weightings. Remember, that you should not have any unused criteria rows. If you do, delete unused criteria rows.
If you want fewer than the 5 standard ratings columns (Fail, Pass, Credit, Distinction, High Distinction) in your rubric then you can delete the unwanted ratings columns.
Return to the Rubric worksheet.
Check the rating column headings along the top of the table

You can change the titles (Fail, Pass, Credit, etc) if you wish. You can also change the number of points given for each rating column (1, 3, 4, 5, 6) if you wish but this is not recommended.
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This would be a good time to save your changes by doing File>Save.
Enter a description in each criteria/rating cell in the table:

You may copy and paste these from another document if this information has already been prepared.
Important: In order to avoid pasting the text with the format from the source document, you must double-click in the cell before you paste. This will paste plain text which will pick up the formatting of the cell into which you are pasting.
You should also delete any extraneous return characters from the end of a cell after you’ve pasted into it.
Hints: To start a new line or paragraph within a cell, press Alt-Return. To insert a dot point use Insert>Symbol, select the dot symbol, click insert.
(Note: if you typed or pasted more than fits in the cell, then adjust the row height.)
Don’t risk losing your work, save your changes now by doing File>Save.
You might want to hide the Setup worksheet from assessors so that they don't accidently modify it. Return to the Setup worksheet then click on the Hide Setup button. You or they can redisplay the Setup worksheet at anytime by pressing the Setup button on the Rubric worksheet.
When you’ve finished setting up your rubric, print a copy to check that it prints properly. Do this by clicking on the Print button at the bottom of the page. The rubrics are setup to print all on one page. If you’ve entered long descriptions in your rubric, this will cause it to look very small and narrow when printed. If your rubric is too small to be read easily when printed, then reduce the number of words in the longest cell of each row then try printing it again until it is readable. Save your file (File>Save) when you’re happy with it.

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Your rubric is now ready to use for marking except that student names are not yet entered. Will you or others be doing the assessment? How will you or others be using your rubric for assessment? You can print one rubric and make a photocopy for each student for the assessor to fill in manually, or the assessor can use the rubric on a computer (in Excel). The following instructions are for using Excel to record your assessment.

Student names and IDs need to be entered into the Summary worksheet. It is important to setup the first Rubric worksheet, following the instruction above, before entering or importing student names.

Click on the “Summary” tab at the bottom of the window. (Learn more about the Summary sheet).

You can type the student names and IDs or if the names and IDs are already in another file you can click on the “Import Student Names and IDs” button on the Summary worksheet.
You will be asked to select a file containing the student names and IDs. This file can be a file which has been exported from Blackboard Gradebook, or a plain text file from another source. Only the first 40 students will be read from the file.
If you imported names, the first Rubric worksheet will be duplicated for each name imported. If you typed names, you need to duplicate the first Rubric worksheet by using the “number of students?” button on either the Setup sheet or the Rubric sheet to specify the number of students you’ll be assessing with this rubric (max 40).
Save your file (File>Save).

You can email the Excel file to the lecturers or tutors who will be doing the assessment. Each assessor should read the How To Use The Rubrics instructions. You might want to email the link to the instructions to them when you email the rubric file to them.

It is highly recommended that you distribute a copy of the rubric to the students when you give them the assignment, so that they know how they are going to be marked.

If your rubric works well and you would like to share it with others, please consider submitting it to the University of Newcastle rubric website.

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