The Genesis of Rubrics

By: Tom Murdock, Co-Founder and VP of Product Marketing

In the beginning there were no rubrics in Moodle 2.x. And there was great sadness. Moodlerooms introduced two different types of rubrics to clients: a checklist type (where teachers affirmed with checks what criteria students had fulfilled and the score was the aggregate sum), and the standard rubric type (where instructors selected a score within a range of graded criteria). While we looked for clever ways to introduce these rubrics without requiring changes to core code, Moodle didn't offer any plug-in approach to the problem.

Then the very capable David Mudrak (a Moodle HQ developer) began to construct a plug-in system for Moodle 2.2 that could handle rubrics. His solution, Advanced Grading Methods, offered a core framework for new, creative assessment methods. When Moodle 2.2 was released in December of 2011, instructors could easily associate a standard rubric type for Assignment types.

However, Moodlerooms clients missed the checklist type of rubric, so earlier this summer, Moodleooms created much happiness with an Advanced Grading Method called (you got it) “Checklist Advanced Grading Method” which fills that rubric gap.

Enough history? Here’s what it looks like for an instructor!

This simple page provides opportunities to quickly score a submission with checkmarks, as well as offer individual feedback for each grading criteria, or for the overall assignment. The result? Fair feedback that students can anticipate and good tools for rapid instructor grading.

Today, we are pleased to contribute the Checklist Advanced Grading Method to the larger Moodle Community. Special thanks to Moodlerooms developer Sam Chaffee, who implemented a clean, thoughtful solution; David Mudrak who carried the football down the field with an excellent framework; Jason Hardin who navigated the back-and-forth updates between Moodlerooms and the Moodle core team to provide such a workable feature for teachers everywhere; and Kris Stokking who directs our development efforts with patience, wisdom, and a lot of long hours...

If you host Moodle, we encourage you to visit the Moodle plug-in database and download the Checklist rubric plugin now. Documentation for the feature is available at the Moodle docs site. Here also is a video demonstration of the tool recorded by Jason with his dulcet tones... Enjoy!

- Tom