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Creating and assigning rubrics

A rubric describes how a response is scored. Insights supports three rubric styles — analytic, holistic, and scaled — and each has trade-offs you should understand before authoring.

Rubrics are authored in Author → Rubrics and used by Mark. This page covers the authoring decisions and the assignment workflow.

Choosing a rubric style

Analytic rubrics

An analytic rubric breaks a response into separate criteria — often four to six — and scores each independently. The total is the sum (or weighted sum) of the criterion scores.

  • Use when: you want granular feedback, separate criteria genuinely measure different things, or you'll report criterion-level results back to candidates or teachers.
  • Trade-off: slower to mark. Markers have to read each response with several lenses.
  • Example: Year 9 extended writing — content, structure, language, mechanics, each marked out of 5.

Holistic rubrics

A holistic rubric gives the response a single overall score based on a multi-criterion description at each score band.

  • Use when: the criteria are highly interrelated (e.g. mathematical reasoning), or marking speed matters more than criterion-level feedback.
  • Trade-off: less diagnostic information for candidates and teachers.
  • Example: Year 7 numeracy extended response — single score 0–6 with a paragraph describing each band.

Scaled rubrics

A scaled rubric gives a single score on a numeric scale (typically 0–10 or 0–100) without explicit band descriptors. Used for tasks where expert markers can position a response on a continuous scale.

  • Use when: you have experienced markers, you've done calibration up front, and the response is too varied for fixed bands to be useful.
  • Trade-off: harder to defend a specific score if challenged. Higher inter-rater variance without strong calibration.
  • Example: Senior English creative writing.

Authoring a rubric

  1. Go to Author → Rubrics → New rubric.
  2. Choose the rubric style (Analytic, Holistic, or Scaled).
  3. Give the rubric a clear, scoped name. Include the year level and subject so it's findable. Good: Y9 Writing — extended response 2026. Avoid: Writing rubric.
  4. For analytic rubrics, add each criterion and its scale. For holistic, write a band description for each score level.
  5. Add example responses where you can — these become the basis of the validation pool later.
  6. Save as Draft.

Reviewing a rubric

Before a rubric can be used in marking it must be published. Publishing is gated by a review:

  1. With the rubric in Draft state, click Submit for review.
  2. A reviewer (anyone with the Rubric reviewer role) opens the rubric and either:
    • Approves — moves the rubric to Published state.
    • Requests changes — sends the rubric back with comments.
  3. Once approved, the rubric is available to be attached to items.

Trial marking before going live

For high-stakes rubrics, run a trial marking round with 20–30 example responses and three to four markers before publishing. The disagreements you uncover are exactly the things to clarify in the band descriptors.

Assigning a rubric to an item

Rubrics are attached to items in Author → Items, not in Mark. To assign:

  1. Open the item in Author.
  2. In the Scoring section, click Attach rubric.
  3. Select the published rubric.
  4. (Optional) Override the default scoring scale — e.g. cap the maximum at a lower value than the rubric allows.
  5. Save the item.

The next time the item is used in a marking project, the attached rubric drives the marker interface automatically.

Versioning a rubric

Published rubrics are immutable — they don't change once they're in use, so that historical marking results remain reproducible.

To make a change:

  1. Open the published rubric.
  2. Click New version.
  3. Edit the new draft and submit it for review.

The old version remains available for any marking projects that used it. New marking projects pick up the new version automatically.

Removing or retiring a rubric

Rubrics can't be deleted once they've been used in marking — the audit trail depends on them. Instead, retire a rubric to remove it from the active picker:

  1. Open the rubric.
  2. Click Retire.
  3. Confirm.

Retired rubrics still appear on historical reports and projects. They simply don't show up when assigning rubrics to new items.