UniRubric

UniRubric is a higher-education assessment platform that uses AI to prepare rubric-based draft grades with quoted evidence. It is aimed at lecturers and institutions that want faster marking while keeping teaching staff responsible for every released result. The review-first workflow is its clearest advantage, but run allowances and institution-level account charges determine whether it fits your workload.

Overview

Lecturers can upload rubrics in DOCX, PDF or plain text and add submissions individually or as a class. UniRubric produces a draft grade anchored to the rubric and supplies quoted evidence for checking. A grade cannot reach a student until a lecturer reviews, edits and approves it, so this is assisted marking rather than unattended automated assessment.

Analytic and holistic rubrics, AI assistance and bulk scoring cover both structured and broader assessment styles. Faculty leads get a dashboard for calibration across markers, plus tools to draft a meeting agenda and schedule a calibration meeting. That makes it more than a personal grading utility, although institutional costs include both student-based marking and teacher accounts.

Key features

• Evidence-backed drafts: Quoted passages give lecturers a concrete basis for checking each rubric judgement. Mandatory approval preserves academic responsibility but means the product cannot remove the review step from a marking process.
• Class and individual intake: Uploading a whole class suits batches; adding students one at a time suits smaller or irregular workloads. Bulk scoring is useful when many submissions share one rubric.
• Rubric flexibility: Support for analytic and holistic rubrics lets departments use either criterion-by-criterion marking or an overall judgement, rather than forcing one assessment model.
• LMS connections: Institutional plans support Canvas, Moodle and Blackboard through LTI 1.3, with Assignment and Grade Services rolling out. The contracting page also lists Brightspace integration for institutional plans, so buyers should confirm the exact integration scope in their quote.
• Calibration tools: The faculty dashboard helps compare marking across markers and organize calibration meetings, a practical fit for coordinated courses rather than solo use only.
• Data controls: Customer data, submissions, rubrics and grading runs are region-pinned to Sydney with no cross-region replication under standard operation. TLS 1.3 protects data in transit, AES-256 protects it at rest, and per-tenant column encryption covers sensitive student identifiers. Submitted material, grades, edits and feedback are not used to train or fine-tune models.
• Retention and support access: Deleted assignments are removed from production within 24 hours and backups within 35 days, while grading-run audit logs remain for seven years. Staff access is limited to institution-directed support tickets and recorded in the audit trail. The security position is described as aligned with the AU Privacy Act, GDPR, FERPA and TEQSA; SOC 2 Type I is a Q4 2026 roadmap target, not a current certification.

Pricing

UniRubric is freemium, with paid plans from $15/mo and a free trial. The free Lecturer Free plan costs nothing, billed as one lifetime marking job. It includes one job, full rubric-anchored output, approval before release, PDF export and no credit card requirement. It is useful for a single evaluation or occasional lecturer, but the lifetime one-job cap prevents sustained free use.

Top-up packs cost $1 per extra run, billed once and sold in small packs. They cover runs beyond the free lecturer job or a Premium allowance, with no charge without sign-off. Lecturer Premium monthly costs $15 a month and includes 15 runs per calendar month, six-month rollover, a priority queue, cancellation at any time and $1 extra runs through top-ups. The annual Premium plan is $180 a year, paid up front, with 15 runs per month, six-month rollover, $1 top-ups and cancellation of renewal at any time. Annual billing costs more upfront but suits predictable teaching cycles.

Institutional Light costs $9 a year per student per term and allows 10 runs per student per term; Standard costs $15 a year per student per term for 25 runs; Heavy costs $25 a year per student per term for 60 runs. Each institutional plan adds teacher account services at $18 a month per account, and local tax is added to the formal quote. These plans fit departments that need LMS and faculty controls, but buyers must budget the per-student, per-term line and account fees together.

Platforms

UniRubric is offered through a web platform and an API. Institutional LMS connectivity covers Canvas, Moodle and Blackboard via LTI 1.3, with Brightspace listed for institutional contracting and Assignment and Grade Services in active rollout.

Who it's for

Lecturers who want evidence-supported drafts without surrendering final approval are the best individual users, especially when marking exceeds the free allowance. Universities and faculty leads gain the most from LMS integration, calibration oversight and institution-controlled data residency. Researchers studying marking are also part of the stated audience. It is a poor fit for anyone seeking grades released automatically or a permanently free, high-volume service.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Every grade remains a lecturer-reviewed draft, reducing the risk of unreviewed AI decisions reaching students.
• Quoted evidence and support for analytic and holistic rubrics make drafts easier to evaluate across different assessment designs.
• Class uploads, bulk scoring and LMS integration address real course-scale workflows.
• Sydney data residency, encryption, restricted support access and a no-training policy provide clear controls for sensitive student work.
• Faculty calibration and meeting tools extend value to departments managing multiple markers.

Cons

• The free plan allows only one lifetime marking job, so it is not a continuing no-cost option.
• Premium plans cap runs at 15 per month, while institutional plans add both per-student, per-term charges and $18-per-month teacher accounts.
• Assignment and Grade Services are still rolling out, so some LMS workflows may not be complete.
• A seven-year audit-log retention period may exceed what some institutions want for operational records.

Alternatives

• Gradescope suits readers wanting Android, iOS and web access, question-by-question grading, dynamic rubrics, assignment statistics and regrade requests on its free Basic plan.
• GradeBoard is a web option for lighter use, with 10 learner submissions per month, limited rubric uploads, basic analytics and 30-day retention on its free plan.
• OpenRubric is the better choice for teams prepared to self-host, with a free first partner event under its stated exchange terms.
• Rubric Scorer fits mobile-first users who need up to three rubrics for one class free on Android and iOS.
• RubriqFlow offers unlimited free faculty and staff accounts, with student access charged per student per semester.
• Pawtograder is a free, self-hosted option for instructors evaluating the community instance.
• Quick Rubric is a free web account for publicly available rubrics with non-commercial reuse limits.
• RubiStar is a free web rubric tool for educational use, without a free trial and with deletion risk for personal or commercial use.

Verdict

Choose UniRubric if you need rubric-anchored AI drafts with quoted evidence, mandatory lecturer approval and institutional controls around LMS delivery and Australian data residency. Its main reason to look elsewhere is cost and volume: the free tier ends after one lifetime job, Premium is run-capped, and institutional deployment combines student charges with teacher-account fees. For departments willing to fund that structure, it is a focused way to accelerate marking without handing final judgement to software.