Rubrics

Rubrics are powerful tools for assessment. The RAILS project is intended to help librarians create and use rubrics for information literacy assessment. To this end, RAILS serves as clearinghouse for information literacy rubrics.

Organization

Existing RAILS rubrics are grouped by topic and/or by creator and accessible using the navigation links on the right.

Participation

Any of these rubrics can be modified and saved by librarians; librarians can also upload new rubrics. To do so, librarians should click the "participant login" link at the top of this page for site approval. Once approved as a RAILS website participant, librarians are welcome to adapt the rubrics as needed. To modify an existing rubric, approved participants should use the "Make and Save my own Rubric" button. (Note, this process does NOT actually change the existing rubric. Instead it makes a new copy that can be modified as needed. Please be sure to change the title of your new rubric!) To upload a new rubric, click here.

Keep in mind

These rubrics have been submitted by volunteers and are not perfect. Indeed, some include design flaws like those listed in the presentations and articles listed under the "Training" section of this site. Moreover, adopting rubrics wholesale from another campus is often not a successful strategy; rather, rubrics should be adapted to local contexts. To be effective, rubrics must be tailored and raters must be trained!