It can be a guide for critiquing the effectiveness of media projects and for planning project designs, a tool for assessment used by teachers and students, and a process of establishing the essential goals and assessment criteria of multimedia projects in your class. A rubric is a set of categories which define and describe the important components of the work being completed, critiqued, or assessed. Each category contains a gradation of levels of completion or competence with a score assigned to each level and a clear description of what criteria need to be met to attain the score at each level. As an assessment tool, rubrics allow for complex critiques of multimedia projects, presentations, written reports, and other classroom work. Since the criteria for assessment is clearly defined, teachers and students share a common understanding of the project goals and criteria, and the various levels of completing the defined criteria.
Rubrics also allow for various modes of assessment.
Rubrics can also be used to critique current media productions, existing web pages, advertisements, etc. by students and teachers trying to develop greater media literacy. By breaking down the media components into different categories and defining various levels of competency in each category, students will have a structure for uncovering and analyzing the various components of the media. They will also have a guide for creating their own media designs and a tool assessing the effectiveness of their projects as they design, review, and revise their projects. While using an existing rubric for assessing, critiquing, and planning media projects may be quite appropriate, there are additional benefits to creating a rubric with the class. Students will not only understand, but be actively engaged in the process of determining the criteria used for their assessment.