Building a rubric

The rubric is how work gets scored. It is the single most important thing you set up, because everything the assistant proposes is measured against it. You build it on the rubric canvas, and you can go as light or as detailed as you like.

Criteria

A rubric is a list of criteria, the things you are grading (for example, Thesis, Evidence, Mechanics). Add one with the + beside the Criterion column header, and give each a short description of what it measures. A criterion can hold sub-criteria if you want to break it down further, and each rolls up into its parent.

How each criterion is measured

Every criterion is scored on levels, from strongest to weakest (Exemplary, Competent, Developing, and so on). You choose how much detail to write:

• Target level only: one description of what good work looks like for that criterion (single-point style).
• Every level: a distinct description for every level, so the assistant (and the student) sees exactly what separates an Exemplary from a Developing.

This is a grading decision, not just a layout one: the assistant reads whatever descriptions you write, so a full grid tells it exactly where each band starts, while target-only leaves it to judge the other bands against the rubric's own level definitions. The choice sits inside the criterion's scale editor, on the Describe switch, because it only means something once the criterion has levels to describe. Open it from the criterion's scale chip. Expanding turns the look-fors into a grid with a column per level; collapsing keeps every level description you wrote, so you can switch back and forth freely.

How a criterion is scored

Open Set up criterion from any criterion's row and you get the whole thing in one place, as four steps: the criterion itself, its scoring, its grading notes, and its rules.

Scoring is one question with five answers, and picking one is the whole decision:

• Fixed point — you name a level and the criterion takes that level's points.
• Range — you give a score and it lands in whichever level holds it.
• Points only — no levels at all, just a number up to what the criterion is worth. The one setting is how finely you can type it: whole points, halves, or tenths.
• Rules — the rules below carry the points and the criterion is worth their sum. Good for mechanical, countable requirements; Equal weight divides the points evenly across them. Keep judgment criteria, like argument quality or writing, on levels, since summing items there flattens real differences between papers.
• Not scored — still judged, still commented on, but adds nothing to the total.

Switching between them never loses work quietly: an option that would cost you something says so on the option itself before you pick it.

A criterion with rows underneath it that are each scored and added up is a section, and a section has no scoring of its own, since its number is the sum of its parts. A criterion scored by Rules is not a section: its items are what score it, so it is set up like any other criterion, and each item opens its own Set up with its points and its grading note.

The Scale column header sets the scale for the whole rubric. It shows the scale in force next to the word Scale, and clicking it opens the editor, where you can rename the levels, add or remove one, or pick a preset like Excellent → Poor. The preset you are on stays highlighted. Levels are evenly spaced unless you say otherwise, so the editor shows you names and nothing else; if you need an uneven ladder, say a lowest band that still earns half credit, open Custom spacing and each level takes one number. A change there reaches every criterion that follows the rubric scale; a criterion you have given its own scale keeps it, and the editor names those criteria so you know exactly which ones stand apart. Use this scale for every criterion is the one action that replaces them all, and confirms how many criteria it applied to.

The fastest way to fix a single label is to click it where you see it: the level headers above a criterion's grid are clickable, and open the editor with that label ready to rename. In the Scale column, a criterion that differs from the rubric wears a chip naming its own ladder; a criterion that follows the default stays quiet until you hover it, where a Same as rubric chip is the door to give just that criterion its own labels. Forking a criterion starts from the ladder it was already on, so the levels, points, and descriptions carry over and you only change what you meant to (say, renaming one criterion's lowest level to Missing while the rest of the rubric keeps Basic).

Points

Every criterion is worth points, and you type them on its line. Next to each one, in grey, is that criterion's share of the grade as a percentage. That is a readout, not a field: it follows the points and you never have to set it. If you think in percentages, keep the rubric out of 100 and the two numbers are the same.

The Total box in the points column header is what the whole assignment is worth. Changing it rescales the rubric: every criterion keeps its share and its points move with it, so making a 100-point rubric worth 70 turns a 20-point criterion into 14 without you touching a number. Level values follow too. Points land on halves, and the criteria always add up to the total exactly, so what you read in the footer is what a student can earn.

Two repairs sit nearby, and they do different things. The scale icon beside the total splits it evenly across every scored criterion, which is what you want on a fresh rubric. When the criteria do not add up, which an imported rubric often does not, the footer offers to even them out instead: that removes the drift and keeps whatever proportions you had, so a criterion you deliberately weighted heavily stays that way.

Getting a head start

You do not have to build from a blank canvas:

• Import a rubric from a file to bring in one you already have (a Word doc, a PDF, a spreadsheet). Reading a dense rubric takes a little while, so the Assistant narrates each step as it goes and tells you how long it has been working. A longer wait also brings up short pointers about the builder, so the time is not wasted.
• Import from Canvas pulls in a rubric already built in your linked Canvas course. Canvas rubrics are fully structured, so this is a direct copy, no reading required. It is one-way: edits here do not sync back to Canvas. The button sits in the builder toolbar as well as on the rubric step, and if your class is not linked to a course yet it opens the link step first, then the import.
• Template starts you from a ready-made rubric you can edit like any other. The list matches the kind of writing your site is set up for, so what you open fits your courses. You can also save a rubric you have built as a template of your own.
• Use the Assistant to draft or refine the rubric by describing what you want in plain language. It is one of three panels that share the right-hand side, picked from the toolbar: Assistant, Grade view, and Checklist. One is open at a time and fills the height, and clicking the one already open closes the panel.
• Fill in rubric fills in whatever is still blank (missing descriptions, level cells, AI grading notes) without overwriting anything you have already written.

Extras

• Rules are the specific things the grader checks on a criterion, one by one. Every rule belongs to one criterion, and they all live in one list in Set up criterion (the Rules column on the row is the other door). Each rule is worth one of three things: Note it (flagged on the paper, score unchanged), Require (unmet scores zero), or a points amount you type — positive is earned when the rule is met, negative comes off when it is missed, and Apply per occurrence makes the amount fire once for each distinct instance the grader finds ("minus one for each comma splice"). You can start from the rule library instead of writing one from scratch.
• Rules are optional on every criterion except one. Under Fixed point, Range or Points only they adjust a score the criterion has already been given, so the list shows the swing they can apply. Under Rules scoring they _are_ the score, so the criterion needs at least one and the list shows the total they carry (change a rule's points there and the criterion's worth changes with it). On a Not scored criterion there is no number to move, so a rule can require or note something but cannot carry points.
• AI grading notes are private guidance to the assistant about how you want a criterion judged. They are read by the grader and never shown on a paper.
• A student preamble is text students read before they submit.

The clearer the rubric, the more useful and consistent the feedback. See How grading works for what happens once it is set.