After several instances of "I don't get the rubric..." I pulled some old student work (de-dentified of course) and posted the three papers in the online course. Here is an example of a report that received an A, a B, and a C - see if you can identify each, and comment for each what led you to that decision. It really helped to open their eyes as to how difficult it is to be objective in the grading process. After this intro, we worked on a "class rubric" for discussion boards what do you need to do to get an A, B, or C. Since they were contributing to the creation of it, I saw a lot of the grumbling about the grading drop. I think it is about making assessment more transparent?