T refers to a title that reflects the content of the message. When there are many responses in a discussion forum, the participants may not have time to read all of the messages. However, they may read the brief description and select reviewing those interventions whose titles grab their attention.
Excellent: Your title is suggestive and reflects the intention and content of the message.
Good: Your title relates to the content of the message but does not underscore the intention.
Fair: There is a title but it is fairly related to the content.
Unacceptable: There is no title, or it is just the automatic RE:.. produced by the system.
I denotes illation that is desirable in the entries. In the context of threaded discussions illation refers to building new ideas based on logical reasoning from what others have said, quoting and reasoning on their postings. The Visual Thesaurus defines illation as “the reasoning involved in drawing a conclusion or making a logical judgment on the basis of circumstantial evidence and prior conclusions rather than on the basis of direct evidences”. See the visual map that the Visual Thesaurus posts for illation.
Excellent: Your message builds on prior messages threading ideas between them.
Good: Your message mentions prior messages but does not link them.
Fair: Your message mentions authors and ideas from other messages that influenced yours.
Unacceptable: Your message does no take into consideration prior messages.
NA: Your message opens a discussion thread, or is the first answer to a discussion seed.
G refers to generate more discussion with your intervention, not for the sake of it but getting to the core of what is being discussed. For example, it is good to find disparities among the different positions and to formulate new questions such as what are the main differences, or to ask what may be the causes or the consequences from what has been stated. Anyone who limits himself to saying only what s/he thinks about something can close the discussion, which would be detrimental to a flourishing online conversation.
Excellent: Your intervention helps deepening the discussion, leaves new discussion seeds.
Good: Your message includes questions but they do not help deepening the discussion.
Fair: Your message includes questions but they are not open ended.
Unacceptable: There are no new discussion seeds, or there are only pseudo-questions.
E underscores the importance of enriching and adding value to the discussion. Just saying that “I agree with…” or repeating what has already been posted does not help the discussion to grow. If upon reading the threads of the discussion generated, you discover that your points of view have already been presented, determine if the discussion has been completed, this is to say, if it has already reached a point where nothing more can be added. If this is the case, seek another discussion point that will permit you to go beyond what has already been said.
Excellent: Your intervention moves the discussion forward bringing new elements or perspectives into it.
Good: Your message focuses the discussion highlighting key elements of it.
Fair: Your message deals with the discussion thread but does not add value to it.
Unacceptable: Your intervention does not correspond to the discussion thread.
R highlights the importance of ensuring readability for your message. Many times our ideas are very good but are flawed due to punctuation problems, syntax errors, incorrect or undefined abbreviations or the omission of a word. It is recommended to use a text editor with spell checking and to “read aloud” mentally the message that was prepared indicating the precise punctuation, not punctuation that one may wish to use. The use of paragraphs, indents and colors helps readability.
Excellent: Your message is well written and is presented in an easily readable format.
Good: Your intervention is well written but it is in a format hard to read.
Fair: The message is understandable but it is not well written or presented.
Unacceptable: The message is not understandable.
Use this link to get a PDF version of the TIGER Rubric
