🧭Ranks and Rulers
Ranks and Rulers
A rank shows how a set of items relates in quality. A ruler makes that shared understanding of quality reusable.
In RM Compare, Studio is used to create ranks through comparative judgement. Hub then helps organisations govern and share rulers, so new work can be assessed against a trusted standard in Live.
Rank → Ruler → Reusable shared standard
What is a rank?
A rank is the ordered outcome of a comparative-judgement exercise.
In Studio, judges compare pairs of items and decide which demonstrates the stronger overall quality. Across many comparisons, RM Compare establishes an ordered quality continuum: a rank order.
A rank helps answer:
“How does each item in this set relate to the others in quality?”
Ranks are especially useful when judging complex work - such as writing, portfolios, design work, practical performance or projects - where quality is best understood holistically rather than by adding together separate marks.
What is a ruler?
Instead of running a new comparative-judgement exercise every time a new group of items is assessed, a ruler allows new work to be compared against an established quality scale.
A ruler helps answer:
“Where does this new item sit on the standard we already trust?”
RM Compare’s ruler model turns comparative-judgement activity into an asset that can be stored, governed and applied repeatedly across users, centres and assessment moments.
Rank and ruler compared
| Orders a selected set of items by quality | Uses that ordered evidence as a reusable shared standard |
|---|---|
| Created through comparative judgement in Studio | Governed and shared through Hub |
| Usually relates to a particular assessment or standard-setting exercise | Designed to support repeated use across new items, users or cohorts |
| Helps establish the standard | Helps apply the standard |
| Answers “Which is stronger?” | Answers “Where does this new work belong?” |
How a rank becomes a ruler
The process is straightforward:
- Select evidence
Choose suitable items from the Standards Repository for the assessment domain and purpose. - Create the rank in Studio
Judges use comparative judgement to establish a quality continuum across the selected work. - Review the rank
An assessment lead or authorised owner checks that the rank is suitable for its intended purpose and that the supporting evidence is appropriate. - Create the ruler
The approved rank is made available as a reusable reference scale. - Share through Hub
Hub controls who can access and use the ruler across licence centres, teams or organisations. - Use in Live
Authorised users compare new work against the ruler on demand.
Why rulers are useful
A ruler enables a standard to persist beyond a single comparative-judgement session.
This can help organisations:
- Apply a common reference point across classes, cohorts, teams or centres.
- Reduce the need to rebuild a full rank for every new assessment activity.
- Support teacher, assessor and moderator calibration.
- Make standards more visible through authentic examples of work.
- Benchmark new work consistently against an agreed quality continuum.
- Retain the evidence and professional judgement that established the standard.
Rather than creating an isolated ranking event, the ruler supports a shared standard that can be used repeatedly.
An example
A group of subject specialists uses Studio to comparatively judge a representative set of Year 6 writing and creates a rank from weaker to stronger performance.
After review, the organisation creates a ruler from that rank and shares it through Hub. Teachers in participating schools can then use Live to compare a new piece of Year 6 writing against that ruler.
The teacher does not need to wait for a national moderation event or rank every new piece of work alongside all other submissions. They can place the new work against the established shared standard when needed.
A note on maintenance
A ruler should be governed and reviewed over time. New work can be placed on an existing ruler without automatically changing it.
Where an organisation needs to refresh or extend a standard, it can select suitable evidence for controlled review and further comparative-judgement activity. This supports a Steady State approach: maintaining continuity while ensuring shared standards remain relevant.
For more detail, see Maintaining standards in Steady State.