Designing a Rubric Development Framework

Laura: My name is Laura Rook and I'm an academic in the School of Business in the Faculty of Business and Law. I'm currently teaching the Integrated Business Capstone, which is a final year subject that all Bachelor of Business students need to complete.

Mary: My name is Doctor Mary Papakosmas. I teach public relations and communications in the School of Business.  

Rubrics are a wonderful resource to ensure consistency in marking across the subject. And in my experience, it's been incredibly helpful. Several of the subjects I teach are very large student cohorts, so I have a reasonably large teaching team, all of whom are really committed to quality education. 

So by being able to provide not only the students with a rubric that talks about expectations, but talking about that with a teaching team, I can ensure that marking is more consistent across my subject and across the various tutorials that are offered. And students in those various tutorials know that there's consistency as well. 

So if they're talking with peers in different classrooms, they know what the expectations are and they know how those assessment tasks are being marked and what the outcomes are going to be. 

Laura: What I was hoping to achieve with the Rubric development framework was to firstly enhance the student learning experience through helping educators to develop rubrics that are clear and structured and that use simple, understandable language. Hopefully students will then be able to review their expectations and we can have an impact on student outcomes, a more positive impact on student outcomes.

Mary: We were really trying to achieve something that was usable, that was actually user-friendly. So that when academics were considering how to improve the rubrics that they offer to students, there was actually a resource that was available to them that made sense to them, that connected with the outcomes that they were working towards for their students and was expressed in a way that was easy to understand.

Mary: There are two things that I really love about the framework. And the first thing is its visual appeal. It's very simple, it's user-friendly, and its language is simple and user-friendly, which is all about what rubrics should be. The second thing is that it includes active links. So if you need further resources, you don't have to go and search for those subject learning outcomes, CLOs. They are all embedded in the document itself, so it enables academics to instantly go and follow up, get some more information and understand how those elements build into the rubrics that they're creating.

Laura: But what I really love about the framework is that it's, you don't have to just use it when you're designing a new rubric, a new assessment. What I really enjoy using it for is that I will take a rubric and look at my current assessment and then go through the steps of the process and go, oh, does something need to change if I've forgotten something? This is especially important when you're taking on a new subject or you want to refresh a subject. So it can be used both at the beginning when perhaps you're designing a new subject or assessment, but also just to reflect and re look at what you've already completed. 

Mary: Looking at the framework that we've created, I'm really pleased to say that we've achieved what we intended and that was quite simply something that's usable and something that collates and brings together all of the resources that academics need to consider when they're creating a rubric. So instead of them having to go and search websites and find links, everything is there. And we really started with the intent of creating something concise, clear, simple, user friendly and that I think is what we have.

Laura: The framework has been through a number of revisions, through an iterative process, consulting with colleagues across the university. So some of the original feedback we received was that there were too many steps in the framework and too much information actually included in the framework, that it just got too busy. And so we introduced links so that if you already knew, for example, accreditation or you already knew Bloom's Taxonomy, then you didn't have to click, you didn't have to read all about that. You could click on a link if you didn't know and you could go further. So we wanted to then I guess streamline it and make it shorter in terms of the steps because obviously again, academics are time poor just like anyone in the workplace.

One of the other bits of feedback that we received was accreditation. So a number of faculties across the university have accreditation requirements and so we got some feedback to say that definitely needs to be in there. And we didn't always have it, you know, one of the first steps, but it was really the feedback we got was it really needs to be considered upfront because it really can impact in terms of assessment design and outcomes. So we moved that around a bit. And so each of those bits of feedback have been integrated into the final version that you see today.

Laura: My advice that I would give to our colleagues thinking about designing or developing a rubric is to give the rubric framework a go. Try it out, even with, you know, perhaps the subject that you you've inherited that you're taking over. That's new. Look at reflect, look at what's already there, go through the process and see if anything's been missed. We're all only human after all, and so we're always progressing and learning and I think that the framework can support that process.

Mary: The framework to me is something that's useful and I hope that you find it useful as well as you're developing your rubrics. I think if you have it alongside you while you're building your rubrics, it will make sense to you. And the process of rubric development will also make sense, especially when you think about what your subject is all about. What are the elements that really represent the essence of learning in your subject? You can convey that in your rubric, and students will actually benefit from that.