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To Rubric or Not to Rubric

It is with great excitement as well as the heavy weight of responsibility that we engage in this scholarly public conversation about rubrics. Our thoughts, as represented by the commentary below, were both stimulated by and written in response to Riebe and Jackson’s article “Assurance of Graduate Employability Skill Outcomes Through the Use of Rubrics.” Having read two iterations of that article, and imagining that we are engaging in an active dialogue with others about this issue, we highlight three key messages that we believe warrant further consideration and discussion by the Journal of Management Education (JME) readership. The first relates to motivation. In an earlier draft of their article, Riebe and Jackson put forth the assertion that rubrics “encourage a sense of purpose” for faculty members. Although that phrase is no longer included in their article, we believe it accurately represents one of the core beliefs underpinning many advocates of rubrics in higher education. On this point we would tell a different story—our belief is that most if not all faculty members have a preexisting sense of purpose related to quality teaching and learning and that administrative mandates that are frequently interpreted as “telling us how to teach” are not particularly motivating. The second message we would like to revisit relates to the authors’ discussion of the design and effective implementation of rubrics. As part of our comments below, we believe there are numerous complex issues