This article explains the options available for assessing discussions that have an associated D2L Rubric. There are two methods for completing an associated rubric. How students can view their rubric and feedback is dependent on the chosen option. 


For more information on discussion setup, see the Discussion Setup article. For more information on rubric setup, see the Rubric Setup article.  


Note: Depending on your browser, you may receive a notification asking if you want to leave the page when navigating and saving rubric and discussion pop up windows. If prompted, always choose "Leave" to continue your navigation.


Option 1: Complete the Rubric at the Discussion Level

Completing the rubric at the discussion level will require that students navigate to "Class Progress" > "Discussions" in order to view the completed rubric.


Setup

Attach the rubric to the discussion topic by clicking "Add Rubric" on the "Assessment" tab of discussion setup.


Select the rubric that you created from the list of rubrics and click "Add Selected."


OPTIONAL: Tie the discussion to a Grade item by selecting it or creating a new grade item under the "Grade Item" heading.

Once the rubric is attached to the discussion and the grade item has been associated, click "Save and Close."


Assessing Students

Once students have posted to the discussion, you can evaluate the posts in one of two ways:


Method 1

Click actions arrow next to the discussion name and choose "Assess Topic."


A list of your students will appear. Click on "Topic Score" link to see the student post and the rubric.


The rubric will load in a new window. Scroll down in the window to see the student post. Complete the rubric by clicking in the appropriate fields. Any feedback that you included in the rubric setup will populate directly below the criterion level. This feedback will be available to the student ONLY from the rubric in the Class Progress area. 


Enter "General Feedback" (optional) for the student. Feedback entered in this field will be available to students in the "Feedback" column of Grades (if the discussion is tied to a grade item). 


Click "Save and Close" to save the rubric to Class Progress and publish the score and feedback to Grades (if associated).

Method 2

If you associated a grade item to the discussion topic, you can also evaluate the discussion and complete the rubric by navigating to the Grades area and clicking "Grade all" for the grade item associated to the discussion topic.


On the Grade item page, click the submission bubble icon to view the student post and rubric.


The rubric will load in a new window. Scroll down in the window to see the student post. Complete the rubric by clicking in the appropriate fields. Any feedback that you included in the rubric setup will populate directly below the criterion level. This feedback will be available to the student ONLY from the rubric in the Class Progress area. 


Enter "General Feedback" (optional) for the student. Feedback entered in this field will be available to students in the "Feedback" column of Grades. 


Click "Save and Close" to save the rubric to Class Progress and publish the score and feedback to Grades.


Guiding Students to View their Feedback

Students will be able to see their numeric score and written feedback in the Grades area ("Assessments > Grades").


To see the completed rubric, students will need to navigate to "Assessments" > "Class Progress" > "Discussions."

Students should then click on the "# Topic" link under the appropriate forum in order to view the available topics.


Lastly, students should click on the link to the Rubric to see the completed rubric with automated rubric feedback (if applicable).


Option 2: Complete Rubric from Grades

Completing the rubric from the Grades area will make the completed rubric available to students from the Grades page by clicking "Assessment Details" in the feedback column of Grades. However, this method requires that the instructor use two windows in order to view the student discussion post and rubric at the same time. 


Setup

Attach the rubric to the Grade item by clicking "Add Rubric" on the "Properties" tab of Grade item setup.


Select the rubric that you created from the list of rubrics and click "Add Selected."


Once the rubric is attached to the discussion and the grade item has been associated, click "Save and Close."


Next attach the grade item to the discussion topic by selecting it from the "Grade Item" drop down menu on the "Assessment" tab of discussion topic setup. Also be sure to include the total points in the "Score Out Of" box. Click "Save and Close."



Assessing Students

Once students have made posts to the discussion topic, evaluate students from the Grades area by navigating to "Assessments" > "Grades" and selecting "Grade all" for the associated grade item. 



Click the assessment icon in the assessment column for a student. 



The rubric will appear in a new window. At this time, you can open a new window or tab and navigate to the discussion area to bring up the discussion post for the student.


On the assessment window, complete the rubric by selecting the radial buttons for each criteria/level. The automated feedback (if included during setup) will populate in the feedback column. Click "Save" to record the rubric and "Cancel" to close the window. Remember the score generated by the rubric so you can manually enter it in the next step.



Enter the the score in the "Grade" column.


If you have written feedback to provide, click the feedback icon in the feedback column.


Click "Save and Close" to publish the score, feedback, and rubric to grades.

Guiding Students to View their Feedback

Student will be able to see their score, written feedback, and completed rubric from by navigating to "Assessments" > "Grades."


To view the completed rubric, students will need to click "Assessment details."