A rubric is a scoring tool you can use to evaluate graded work. How to use Blackboard Rubrics for Tests and Assignments.
This page is guidance for using Blackboard Ultra. Need help with rubrics in Blackboard Original?
Create a Mark Schema
The Mark Schema controls what appears in the “Mark using” setting on a marked item. There are several default mark schemas such as points or percentage. You may want to create additional schemas such as pass/fail.
- Go to the course Gradebook.
- Select the cog towards the top right corner.
- Select Manage Mark Schemas.
- On the Mark Schemas page, select Add.
- Name your schema.
- You can now see a table with Mark Name and Mark Range %.
- Edit the names and ranges as desired.
For more information see the Blackboard guide to mark schemas.
Create a rubric
Rubrics are saved at a course level. These can be associated with any marked item on your course.
You can create a rubric in the settings panel when you create an assignment, or you can create a rubric at any time in the Gradebook:
- Go to the course Gradebook
- Select the cog towards the top right corner.
- Scroll down and under the heading Course Rubrics select Create.
- Give your rubric a name.
- Select the rubric type: Percentage, Percentage Range, Points or Points Range.
- The rows are your critera. The columns are your levels. Add and delete criteria and levels.
- Titles are limited to 255 characters. Achievement titles have a 40 character limit. Criteria and description cells have a 1,000 character limit. Rubrics support plain text only. You can paste text from another document, but the formatting doesn’t carry over.
- Ignore Align with goals – these are not currently used at the University of Southampton.
When you assign a rubric to a marked item, students can view a rubric alongside the item instructions. They can expand each rubric criterion to view the achievement levels and organise their efforts to meet the requirements of the work. They can view the rubric before they open an assignment, test, and discussion and after they start the attempt.
When you mark an item using a rubric, you can add feedback alongside each criteria, as well as overall feedback. If used, direct students to review additional feedback this as it can be easily missed.
For more information see the Blackboard Help Guides for Rubrics.
May 2024: The Blackboard roadmap contains features for “No score rubrics for formative feedback” and “Multiple rubrics on an assignment to support programmatic assessment” but these features have no timeline for release.
Locate course rubrics and mark schemas
You can create, edit, duplicate or delete your rubrics and mark schemas in the course Gradebook.
- Go to the course Gradebook.
- Select the cog towards the top right corner.
- Select Manage Mark Schemas or scroll down Course Rubrics to view, edit, create or delete course rubrics.
Copy course rubrics and mark schemas
You can copy mark schemas and rubrics between Ultra courses.
- Begin in the course you wish to copy the rubric or mark schema to.
- Select the three dot menu next to the search option on the Course Content page. Select Copy Items from the dropdown menu.
- A list of your courses appears. If the course you’re looking for isn’t on the first page, use the arrows to navigate or use the search bar.
- Select the arrow beside the name of a course to see its available items to copy.
- Scroll down to the bottom of the list to see the Rubrics and Mark Schemas.
- Select the radio button next to Rubrics or Mark Schemas to copy all of items of that type, or select into the rubrics or schemes to select individual items to copy.
- Select Start Copy.