Canvas Enhanced Rubrics are available in your course as a feature preview. Turning on this feature will provide you early-access to some of the updated rubrics features including importing rubrics, more control when building a rubric from scratch, and some updated usage features in Speedgrader.
To turn it on, go to your course, open settings, choose “feature options” and enable enhanced rubrics.
Importing Rubrics
You can download the template from Canvas and create a rubric using the provided csv file. You would then import that into your course and edit or modify the rubric as needed.
Consider saving time by creating rubrics using an AI tool such as Khanmigo, MagicSchool AI, or our new favorite Colleague.ai. These can take your grading criteria and create a starting place for a rubric. Use the generated content to copy/paste into the Canvas template and -voila! you have a rubric. After using each of these AI tools, my favorites are MagicSchool and Colleague.ai as they require less prompting to get the final result.
First, you will access the template within Rubrics (course navigation) and “Import.” Download the template to start editing.
In this example, we showcase creating two rubrics, each with three criterion and starting with a rating of Exceeds for 5-points down to No Evidence for 0-points. Note, you can only see to rating 3 in this image.
Using the template can help create a base rubric that you can further edit in Canvas. Adding additional ratings requires copying 3 columns, “rating name,” “rating description,” and “rating points” for each additional rating you will need. Criterion is by row.
Building a Rubric
You can build a rubric in Canvas in a couple of spaces. First, from course navigation “Rubrics.” This is where you can manage all rubrics associated with a course. Second, you can build a rubric from an assignment.
Both of these options work the same when building the rubric. You can choose to add your own criterion or if you have imported outcomes into your course, you can add these to the rubric (if importing ISD outcomes/standards, they are not editable).
When you create your own criterion, each one can have it’s own rating scale and you can adjust the points. For example, I can make conventions worth 4 points and I can make ideas worth 10. Ultimately, you can weight your rubric categories directly, but if you are attempting to align to outcomes, you are still bound to the outcomes mastery scale. You will continue to have the option to use the rubric to grade or just to use it for information once it is added to an assignment.
- You can determine your rating scale, but item, when adding your own criterion.
- Rating scale (see next image) determines the standards criteria and points are independent of this scale
- Draft your own criterion from scratch or copy/paste as needed
- Create criterion from imported outcomes (standards)
- Save as a draft or finalize
As shown in the above image, the rating scales are the same for both criterion, but the point values are different. If you are using standards based grading, your rating scale is what determines mastery (imported outcomes only). Points would show in your traditional gradebook view as a total for the assignment.
Speedgrader Features
When using the original rubrics, you will always have the “traditional” layout of the rubric in speedgrader. Comments for each criterion are added with the comment box.
With enhanced rubrics, you can choose between traditional view, horizontal and vertical. This might make grading easier, depending on the rubric criterion. Most important, the ability to leave a comment, by criterion, is much more present and easy to use.
For support using enhanced rubrics, please contact your Ed Tech Lead or TOSA. You can also find resources from Canvas in the following guides:
- How do I manage rubrics in a course using Enhanced Rubrics?
- How do I add a rubric in a course using Enhanced Rubrics?
- How do I align an outcome with a rubric in a course using Enhanced Rubrics?
