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| Reviewed: |
May 30, 2009 by Teacher Education |
| Overview: |
iRubric is part of a larger web site called Rcampus.com. iRubric is a comprehensive rubric development, assessment, and collaboration tool. Designed from the ground up, iRubric supports a variety of usage in an easy-to-use package. Best of all, iRubric is free to individual faculty and students. |
| Learning Goals: |
The intended goals of iRubric are to make it easy and accessible for folks to build rubrics and access them from anywhere, create grade books and use rubrics for easy grading, distribute rubrics to students, and much more all for free.
The learning goals are determined by the user. |
| Target Student Population: |
Preservice teachers, K-12 teachers, university instructors and other educators |
| Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills: |
Students should have an understanding of rubric construction strategies prior to using this iRubric to help them better understand the qualities of a good rubric. A basic understanding of performance-based and authentic assessment would be helpful. |
| Type of Material: |
Online tool for creating and managing rubrics used to assess student work. |
| Recommended Uses: |
Professors teaching assessment-related courses can use iRubric to show students how technology can aid in rubric creation. Students need to be aware that rubrics are created by other users so there may be quality issues. Students should be shown how they can copy rubrics and modify for their own use.
Rubrics can be used for a number of reasons. Some examples include: peer reviews, writing assignments, project construction, presentations, portfolio reviews, art assignments, skill development and more. |
| Technical Requirements: |
Users need basic internet navigational and form entry skills. |
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| Strengths: |
Rcampus allows faculty members to create a web site, manage a course, and more. iRubric is under this umbrella of tools. To get to it you need to create a free account. In iRubric you can build a rubric, revise an existing rubric, and use an existing rubric you developed to create a template for a new one. The systematic rubric generator has slots for criteria, level and weight for each column created.
The Gallery of Rubrics is filled with thousands of examples of rubrics generated by users. The site includes screencasts of major steps which benefit visual learners. |
| Concerns: |
There does not appear to be a way to delete your rubrics. The site does not contain any content to help users understand the qualities of a successful rubric. It is understandable that the site owners would choose to leave this to assessment experts of individual institutions. |
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Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool |
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| Strengths: |
The rubrics you create are only as good as your understanding of rubric construction. That said, the potential effectiveness of this site it its main strength. The online template prompts provide a solid guide for the structure and layout of your created rubrics. The benefits of iRubric include: build simple to complex rubrics; expandable criteria sections; flexible points/percent weighting; score students using rubrics directly from a class gradebook; perform group assessment using rubrics; reuse rubrics made by you or by others; share your rubrics with others at Rubric Gallery; learn how others use rubrics; organize rubrics by subject, coursework type, and grade level; build a list of your favorite rubrics;
customize and print rubrics; showcase rubrics on your free website; aggregate rubric scores; post comments on any rubric; send rubrics to others; allow students to self-assess.
A discussion area is available for those who want to ask questions about a particular rubric or get suggestions on criteria to include when creating a rubric. |
| Concerns: |
It would be valuable to export a rubric to a spreadsheet for times when a teacher cannot be online to assess. |
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Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty |
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| Strengths: |
iRubric is intuitive and most will be able to figure out how it works with minimal instruction. The step-by-step directions and the how-to videos are great aids for anyone who needs a little assistance.
The tabs across the top of the page are clearly labeled and provide guides to the iRubric pages. One of the tabs is a help button which provides a wealth of information on iRubric and assessment use. The headings are clear and tasks are indicated by both words and icons within the site. |
| Concerns: |
The only part that may be confusing is how iRubric integrates with other RCampus tools. Instructors may want to generate a rubric that will not be used with the gradebook. The directions seem to assume that users will want to use the integrated tools.
It is frustrating not to be able to directly delete a practice rubric. You must go through 3 steps: 1. Put the rubric in edit mode. 2. Check the box labeled "disable this rubric;" 3. Save the rubric.) The |
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| Other Issues and Comments: |
None. |
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