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Traditionally, rubrics were used simply as grading tools to provide marking frameworks that were transparent to students. More recently, rubrics have been promoted as educational tools to inform students of good practice with the assumption that they engage with these rubrics to guide their learning. However, some tensions arise from this approach, including the assumption that students actually engage with assessment rubrics and, most notably, whether students understand the purpose of rubrics and the language used within. In response, this paper promotes the practice of teachers involving their students in the co-construction of rubrics by presenting a Model of Collaborative Rubric Construction. This Model was informed by an extensive literature review, advice from international assessment experts, and both qualitative and quantitative data from students and teachers who worked in partnership to coconstruct and use assessment rubrics across three higher education institutions. The Model, structured as three-tiers, offers background information about rubrics and their co-construction, strategies to guide collaboration in the rubric co-construction process, and shared scholarship associated with the project (i.e., research methods, recommendations for practice, and relevant references and publications) in which the Model was developed.

As online education continues to expand across varied educational sectors, so does the demand for professional development programs to guide academic teaching staff through the processes of developing their capacities to design and teach online courses. To meet these challenges at one higher education institution, a mixed methods research study was implemented to identify the professional learning needs of academic teaching staff for the purposes of developing a tailor-made professional development program. The principles of self-efficacy and threshold concepts were used to inform the design of the study. Data were systematically gathered from the participants to determine self-efficacy, concerns, and questions and experiences of academic teaching staff with online teaching. Findings revealed that academic staff held threshold concepts, skills and attitudes about online teaching. Three groups of staff were identified, all with varying forms of professional development requirements. This case study account demonstrates how an evidence-based project provided the basis for a researchinformed institutional professional development program that is currently guiding academic staff through their development as online course designers and teachers.

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