Using Rubrics and Competencies

Competencies and Rubrics are used together to generate an assessment of the students’ knowledge of
your course’s subject. Competencies can be used to assess students’ knowledge, skills and abilities
through Learning Objectives and Activities. Rubrics are the standards the instructor uses to evaluate the
activities created for the Competencies

Creating a Rubric

1. On the Rubrics screen, click on the New Rubrics icon.

2. On the Properties tab, fill in the appropriate information:

a. Name
b. Status
c. Description
d. Type
e. Number of Levels
f. Number of Criteria
g. Scoring Method
3. On the Levels and Criteria tab, you can customize the titles by giving the criteria and level names
to correspond with your evaluation goals. Click on the Criteria dropdown menu and select Edit
Criteria Group from the list.

4. Fill in names for the levels and

criteria. Click the Save button.
 5. To add the descriptions for each
level and criteria, click on the level
dropdown menu and select Edit
Level from the list.

6. To add a description for each of your criteria

for Level 4, click on the Edit icon next to each
of the description boxes to turn it into the
HTML Editor.

7. Click inside the HTML Editor and begin typing

your description.

Note: If you have your descriptions in a Word

document, you can copy and paste the text
into the HTML Editor.

8. Repeat these steps for each rubric you would like to add to your course.

In order to use this rubric to assess your students’

work, you can create Competencies, Learning
Objectives, and Activities. You can also create
Activities in the Discussions, Dropbox, and Quizzes
areas.
Creating Competencies, Learning Objectives and Activities

For this method of assessment to work properly, you will need to set up:

• Competencies (C) – structure used to track the students knowledge,

skills, and abilities as they participate in a course.
• Learning Objectives (L) - things that the student needs to learn to
acquire a competency. Figure 1 Desire2Learn Competency
• Activities (A) - used to evaluate learning objectives, a way for Structure Diagram
students to demonstrate what they’ve learned.

Note: Before creating competencies, you should create the Dropbox folders, Discussion topics, Quizzes,
etc. that you will be using as part of the activities to evaluate your students.

The easiest way to set up the competency, Learning

objectives, and activities is to use the Competency Wizard.

1. Click on the Competency Wizard icon.

Note: There are four steps to this process. You will

only have limited editing capabilities for some of
these items, so you will want to make sure each is
correct before moving onto the next step.

2. For step 1, fill in the appropriate competency

information:
a. Name
b. Description
c. Status
d. Additional Identifier
e. Competency visibility
f. Re-evaluation of users

3. For step 2, fill in the appropriate learning objective(s)

information:
a. Name
b. Description
c. Additional Identifier
d. Enforce Evaluation Method
e. Ready for Evaluation
f. Add Learning Objectives
 Note: You can add as many learning objectives as you need to before clicking the Next button.
4. For step 3, fill in the appropriate activity information:
a. Name
b. Associated Learning
Objective
c. Evaluation Method
d. Select Existing Item
e. Select Rubric
f. Overall Threshold
g. Add Activities

Note: You can add as many

activities as you need before
clicking the Next button.

5. For step 4, you will be able to see the competency structure that you just created. If you need
to make any changed, click on the Back button. If this is correct, click the Create button.
6. After the structure has been created, click the Done button to return to the Competencies
screen. On this screen, you will see all of the competencies, learning objectives, and activities
you just created.