Article written by ASC Office of Distance Education Instructional Designer, Jessica Henderson
This article provides an introduction to what Carmen Rubrics are, the benefits that utilizing Carmen Rubrics offer in terms of transparent and metacognitive practices, and step-by-step guides for how to add and manage rubrics in your Carmen courses.
What are Carmen Rubrics?
Carmen, which is Ohio State's Learning Management System (LMS), contains a Rubrics feature that allows instructors to create and attach Rubrics directly to Carmen Assignments, Quizzes, and graded Discussions. Each Rubric consists of a table made up of customizable rows and columns, with each row indicating the individual criterion upon which students' work is to be assessed and each column providing specific feedback on students' work via a rating scale or free-form comments.
Carmen Rubrics can be set as either scoring or non-scoring Rubrics. Non-scoring Rubrics allow for student assessment based on outcomes, but without connecting those outcomes to specific point values. In addition, Rubrics created in Carmen can be attached to multiple Assignments and can be imported for reuse across course sections, as well as other Carmen courses.
What are the benefits of using Carmen Rubrics?
Connecting graded Carmen Quizzes, Discussions, and Assignments to a Carmen Rubric provides several benefits for both students and instructors, one of the most important being an increased level of transparency. The inclusion of transparent design and instructional practices within a course's framework has been shown to have positive, long-term impacts on college students' success and can also help to reduce inequities in an educational environment. [1] And a key method for incorporating transparent course design, as indicated by TILT (Transparency in Teaching and Learning), is to discuss the goals of the assignment and the benefits it will provide to students upfront, before students even attempt to begin the assignment. [2] Because the nature of rubrics, as a tool, is to communicate clear expectations to the student and to align assessments with specific course outcomes, they offer an excellent starting place for improved course transparency.
From a student perspective, especially in an online environment in which students have limited direct access to their instructors and peers to ask clarifying questions, rubrics can greatly reduce confusion about what the student is expected to produce or demonstrate as the result of an assignment, thus limiting the need for additional clarifying questions and time-sensitive responses. In addition, rubrics that breakdown the assignment criteria into clear categories and point values that are explained by detailed descriptions and examples of what qualifies as a high-level product of each, can help students to better understand the depth of analysis or level of mastery that they are expected to exhibit as a result of that assignment.
As a result of providing clear expectations, instructions, and examples that students can use and refer to as they work towards successful completion of an assignment, rubrics can also aid students' metacognitive skills. Metacognition "refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and performance. Metacognition includes a critical awareness of a) one’s thinking and learning and b) oneself as a thinker and learner." [3] Because they are designed as tables, rubrics offer a way to clearly separate and identify varying skills, while also connecting each skill to different levels of mastery and progress. Assessing a student's work by providing a score for each individual skill allows students to more clearly identify their particular areas of strength and weakness. For example, on an essay assignment that utilizes a rubric, the breakdown of the student's score might demonstrate that the student follows instructions exceptionally well and demonstrates a good amount of critical thinking, but the overall organization of the student's argument is weak and disjointed. By identifying this particular area of weakness, the student can return to their submission and explore the areas where the organizational components of the essay can be improved. In addition, it allows the student to keep particular focus on improving this skill on future assignments.
Metacognitive practices help students become aware of their strengths and weaknesses as learners, writers, readers, test-takers, group members, etc. A key element is recognizing the limit of one’s knowledge or ability and then figuring out how to expand that knowledge or extend the ability. Those who know their strengths and weaknesses in these areas will be more likely to “actively monitor their learning strategies and resources and assess their readiness for particular tasks and performances”
- Nancy Chick, Vanderbilt Center for Teaching
While the use of rubrics offer clear benefits that can aid students' metacognition, this can only happen if grading and feedback is completed in a frequent and timely manner. If the student does not receive the graded assignment until just before the next one is due, they will not have ample time to reflect on their learning and performance. It is in providing efficient and timely feedback that utilizing Carmen Rubrics can also benefit instructors, especially those teaching multiple sections or courses with large enrollments.
Because Carmen Rubrics allow for detailed descriptions to be added and saved for each individual criterion and rating value or for freeform comments to be saved and reused across students, this greatly conserves the amount of time needed to provide the type of feedback necessary for students to understand the gaps in their performance and the places that require improvement. Instead of spending hours typing or recording individual feedback, points and feedback can be awarded with a simple click across rows and columns of the rubric. For courses that require multiple grading assistants, the use of rubrics can also enhance the consistency of grading across graders by highlighting the key areas of assessment that should be considered within the assignment.
Citations
[1] TILT Higher Ed: Transparency in Teaching and Learning, <http://tilthighered.com>.
How do I create, manage, and add rubrics to graded assignments?
Within Carmen, Rubrics can be created and added to a course in several different ways. They can be created as standalone items (i.e. not attached to a graded Assignment) using the Rubrics navigation feature, or they can be created directly within an individual graded Quiz, Discussion, or Assignment page. The settings of each individual Rubric can also be customized to meet the specific needs of a given course or Assignment.
For instructions about how to create, manage, and grade using Carmen Rubrics, be sure to check out the video tutorials below. Each tutorial demonstrates the various features and ways to work with Rubrics in Carmen following a step-by-step process. If you prefer, Canvas also provides written instructions with several screenshots that discuss some of the key steps to adding a Rubric and managing Rubrics in Carmen courses.
Important note about adding rubrics:
- Rubrics can only be added to graded Assignments that use the Online, On Paper, or No Submission submission types. If the Assignment employs an External Tool, you will not be able to attach a Carmen Rubric to that particular Assignment.
- Once a Rubric has been added to more than one Assignment, it cannot be edited.
- If you delete a Rubric, the Rubric will be removed from any connected Assignments within the Carmen course. In addition any existing scores provided using the Rubric will also be removed.
Add and Create a New Rubric in CarmenCanvas
Add a Rubric to a Carmen Quiz or Discussion
Add a Rubric to a Carmen Assignment
Grading in SpeedGrader with Carmen Rubrics
If you have questions about working with Carmen Rubrics in your course or would like additional course support, please reach out to our office at ascode@osu.edu or schedule a consultation with one of our Instructional Designers today!