Directions for Creating a Rubric in Rubistar
Directions: Follow the steps to create a rubric in Rubistar.
1. Access the website: http://rubistar.4teachers.org
2. Click Register
3. Complete the registration form and click
You will need to fill out the registration form with zip code. Rubistar is free and funded by an
educational grant from the Department of Education and advertisements. They need zip codes
to track usage areas.
4. Click
5. You will see Rubrics that you can choose to use. They can also be modified. See Tutorial
at the top to learn more. For this project, you will be creating your own rubric. At
this time scroll down to the bottom of the page and select
Click Here to Create a Brand New Rubric
6. Name your Rubric, Choose the number of vertical columns, select No, my rubric is
permanent and click (or you can have the rubric expire at a date you choose)
Click
7. Click
8. Type in the names of the criteria that will be evaluated with the rubric. For example,
Content, Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation, Color, Graphics, etc. When you are
finished, click Add New Row(s)
9. Make any edits, click Update Rows, and then click Edit Rubric Contents
10. Now enter the names of your columns and the specific criteria for each row.
11. When you are done, click
12. Now click Teacher Home at the top of the page.
13. Click
14. Click Save Rubric
15. Once your rubric is complete, click Download Excel Spreadsheet. Name your rubric
and select the correct file type. Also select the correct location to save into. Submit
your rubric with your project as a separate file in WebCT.
LOCATION
NAME
FILE TYPE
RubiStar Rubric Maker
A rubric is "a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of work or 'what counts.'" So a rubric for a multimedia project
will list the things the student must have included to receive a certain score or rating. Rubrics help the student figure out
how their project will be evaluated. Goodrich quotes a student who said he didn't much care for rubrics because "if you
get something wrong, your teacher can prove you knew what you were supposed to do."
Generally rubrics specify the level of performance expected for several levels of quality. These levels of quality may be
written as different ratings (e.g., Excellent, Good, Needs Improvement) or as numerical scores (e.g., 4, 3, 2, 1) which are
then added up to form a total score which then is associated with a grade (e.g., A, B, C, etc).
Many rubrics also specify the level of assistance (e.g., Independently, With Minimal Adult Help; With Extensive Adult
Help) for each quality rating.
Rubrics can help students and teachers define "quality". Rubrics can also help students judge and revise their own work
before handing in their assignments. Rubrics help the student to see the correlation between the effort of work and the
results obtained from that effort.
RubiStar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics but does not have the time to develop them from
scratch.
While many teachers want to use rubrics or are experimenting with writing rubrics, they can be quite time-consuming to
develop. RubiStar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics but does not have the time to develop them from
scratch. RubiStar provides generic rubrics that can simply be printed and used for many typical projects and research
assignments. The unique thing about RubiStar, however, is that it provides these generic rubrics in a format that can be
customized. The teacher can change almost all suggested text in the rubric to make it fit their own project.
For example, if RubiStar suggests for a multimedia presentation that "The student includes at least three slides" for the
highest rating, the teacher could change that to read "The student includes at least 5 slides" or "The student includes a
title slide with the authors' names; a table of contents with links to all slides that follow, ..."
RubiStar also does away with the tedious typing of similar content across all the various quality rating. When you choose
a category to evaluate, all the quality ratings are filled in and are ready to customize.
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