A rubric is a marking grid that lists evaluation criteria for an assignment. It is a tool for lecturers to break down the learning outcomes for an assessment and for students to understand the marking process for their final grade for that assessment.
Lecturers can use rubrics to evaluate student work in a consistent manner and to explain their evaluations to students. If several lecturers or several teaching assistants are evaluating the same pool of submitted work, the use of rubrics can help in establishing consistent evaluation criteria.
For students, rubrics can help organize their efforts to meet the requirements for an assessment. For this reason, it can be useful to make students be aware of the rubric prior to or while working on the assessment.
Blackboard rubrics are made up of rows and columns that constitute a grid. The rows and columns are assigned values (e.g. Rows = Various Criteria; Columns = Levels of Achievement; or the assignment of values can be changed to Rows = Levels of Achievement; Columns = Various Criteria). By default, the rows display various criteria of an assignment. The columns display the levels of achievement expressed for each criterion. A description and point value for each cell in the Rubric defines the evaluation and score of an assignment. There is no limit to the number of Rubrics that can be created in a course site.
Here is an example of a Blackboard rubric