How can rubrics help students to improve their performance without increasing staff workload? This paper discusses the introduction of holistic assessment and feedback rubrics in our Business School. It begins by explaining what a holistic rubric is by situating the discussion within the pedagogical literature. It then sets out the benefits to staff and students of using this approach, both in academic terms and for student well-being.

1. Closing the loop: using holistic rubrics for
effective assessment and feedback
Sarah Honeychurch
Teaching Fellow
Adam Smith Business School
University of Glasgow
Sarah.Honeychurch@Glasgow.ac.uk
@NomadWarMachine
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2. Introduction
• What is a rubric?
• Why use a rubric?
• Adam Smith Business School: a case
study
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3. Why use a rubric?
• Assurance of Learning
• NSS
• Student Experience: Post Pandemic Pedagogy
• Staff time: marking and feedback
“A good rubric allows me to provide individualized, constructive critique in
a manageable time frame.” (Andrade 2005)
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4. What is a rubric?
• Evaluative criteria
• Definitions of quality at different levels
• Grading strategy (Dawson 2017)
A rubric is an assessment tool that lists the criteria for a
piece of work or what counts (for example, purpose,
organization, details, voice, and mechanics often are
what count in a written essay) and articulates
gradations of quality for each criterion, from excellent to
poor. (Andrade 2005)
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5. What is a rubric?
• Different types of marking rubrics
– Analytic marking rubrics
– A marking grid determining a specific score, grade
or percentage
– Holistic marking rubrics
– A grid with criteria. These inform, but do not
determine, grading
– Make the students aware of the marking criteria in
advance
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6. AoL Rubric
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7. Management Pilot
• Semester 1 and 2, 2017/18
• All Honours courses: rubric for each piece of assessment
inserted into course handbook
• 1 hour staff sessions to introduce the use of rubrics
• Supplementing, not substituting or changing other
marking practices or policies
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8. Management: Holistic rubric
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9. • 2 rounds of EvaSys questionnaires
Survey results
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10. Student comments
• “I have found marking rubrics to be extremely helpful for other classes though and I am sure
that they are part of the reason I secured excellent grades for these classes. I think the school
would benefit from using these as I felt the rubrics covered most of what I needed to know and
therefore minimised the need for me to contact the lecturer for help.”
• “Every single course in MGT should have required rubrics. My grades have clearly improved with
the introductions of rubrics because I better understand the assignment, expectations, and can
guide my work and editing with the aid of the rubric.”
• “I really appreciate that Management has started to use marking rubrics (I actually think other
subjects would benefit from this as well!) I believe it is an important part in conveying the
expectations of assignments for students and also help identifying areas for improvement for
the future.”
• “Extend them to cover every class. I felt they helped significantly to my understanding of each
assignment.”
• “Spread the use over the entire university.”
• “Assuring that rubrics are not generic and they include details for a specific assignment is very
important, otherwise they are not helpful at all.”
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11. Taking the pilot forward
• Some students felt the rubrics were too generic
• Some students thought the rubrics lacked detail:
– What does “to expectations” mean?
– What does an X grade look like?
• Need to embed rubrics in School policies and
practices
• Need to reflect institution’s Code of Assessment
– 3 levels of AoL v 8 levels in CoA
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12. UofG Code of Assessment
“Schedule A”
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13. Rubric redesign
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14. title
• Course ILOs
• Assessment ILO(s)
• Assessment Criteria
• Develop descriptors for “good” (use Blooms)
• Develop +/- descriptors
• Ask a colleague to sense check it
• Available for students at beginning of course
• Used for marking and feedback
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15. Moving forward
• Coursework briefing template
– Must provide assessment criteria
– Opt in to develop rubric
• Rubrics toolkit:
– Template
– Worked example
– Rationale (staff and student feedback)
– Short “how to” (including Blooms)
– Practical workshops
– 1-1 support
• SoTL project
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16. References
Heidi Goodrich Andrade (2005) Teaching With Rubrics: The Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly, College Teaching, 53:1, 27-31, DOI: 10.3200/CTCH.53.1.27-31
Phillip Dawson (2017) Assessment rubrics: towards clearer and more replicable
design, research and practice, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 4
2:3, 347-360, DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2015.1111294
Peter Grainger, Michael Christie, Glyn Thomas, Shelley Dole, Deborah Heck,
Margaret Marshman & Michael Carey (2017) Improving the quality of
assessment by using a community of practice to explore the optimal
construction of assessment rubrics, Reflective Practice, 18:3, 410-422, DOI:
10.1080/14623943.2017.1295931
Anastasiya A. Lipnevich, Leigh N. McCallen, Katharine Pace Miles and Jeffrey K.
Smith (2014) Mind the gap! Students' use of exemplars and detailed rubrics as
formative assessment. Instructional Science 42:4 539-559
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43575435
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17. References
Y. Malini Reddy & Heidi Andrade (2010) A review of rubric use in higher
education, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35:4, 435-448, DOI:
10.1080/02602930902862859
D. Royce Sadler, (1987) Specifying and promulgating achievement standards.
Oxford Review of Education, 13, 191–209.
D. Royce Sadler, D. R. (2009) Indeterminacy in the use of preset criteria for
assessment and grading in higher education. Assessment and Evaluation in
Higher Education, 34, 159–179.
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18. Closing the loop: using holistic rubrics for
effective assessment and feedback
Sarah Honeychurch
Teaching Fellow
Adam Smith Business School
University of Glasgow
Sarah.Honeychurch@Glasgow.ac.uk
@NomadWarMachine
18