Enhanced Rubrics Coming to Canvas

If you use rubrics in Canvas on assignments or graded discussions, you will notice a new interface starting June 16, 2026. Northwestern will be enabling the Enhanced Rubrics feature in Canvas as part of our summer updates to Canvas.

Existing rubrics are automatically updated to enhanced rubrics with this feature change.

Highlights of Enhanced Rubrics

• More flexibility when building rubrics: designed to be user-friendly, you will have more options when creating rubrics.
  • Drag-and-drop reordering of rubric criteria.
  • Copy/duplicate criteria within a rubric.
  • Customizable ordering (high to low or low to high) of rating scales.
• Display options in Speedgrader: built to be responsive to different screen sizes.
  • Vertical, horizontal, and traditional view.
• Create rubrics via import of CSV files (file template available in Canvas).
  • Can also export rubric to CSV.
• Rubric search, sorting, archiving, and copying.
  • Rubric index page (Rubrics button in any Canvas course site) has enhanced rubric management functionality.
  • Instructors can save a rubric draft before publishing.
• Student self-assessment: for assignments with “Online” submission type, instructors can enable student self-assessment using the assignment rubric, allowing students to reflect on their own work.

Rubrics can be created in the Rubrics menu in your course navigation or from within the assignment or discussion itself. Also, the assignment score determined via the rubric can be automatically applied as the assignment’s grade if enabled in the rubric settings.

All instructors are encouraged to use rubrics on Canvas assignments or graded discussions to provide clear expectations and consistent feedback to students in their learning activities.

Get Help with Rubrics

Contact Canvas support (in the Help button in Canvas) or the Northwestern IT Teaching and Learning Technologies team for help with enhanced rubrics in Canvas.