🧭Sharing Standards with Live
Sharing Standards with Live
RM Compare | 📳Live enables authorised users to apply a shared ruler to new work on demand.
A ruler provides a trusted quality scale created from a comparative-judgement rank. Live makes that scale practical: users can add new items, compare them against the ruler and see where they sit relative to the shared standard. RM Compare describes Live as the module for using standards on demand.
💻Studio creates the rank. 🧭Hub shares the ruler. 📳Live applies it to new work.
What sharing means
Sharing a standard means making an approved ruler available to the right people, in the right context and for the right purpose.
Hub manages the standard and controls access across organisations, licence centres and users. Live is where authorised users use that ruler to assess, benchmark or discuss new work.
This can support shared practice across a department, school group, multi-centre organisation, awarding body or professional community.
Using a ruler in Live
A typical workflow is:
- An assessment owner creates or selects an approved ruler in Hub.
- The ruler is shared with the relevant licence centres or users.
- A user adds a new item in Live.
- The user makes comparative judgements against items selected from the ruler.
- The new item is placed in relation to the existing shared standard.
- The resulting information can support feedback, calibration, benchmarking or the organisation’s assessment process.
The user does not need to rank every item in a new cohort from scratch. The ruler provides the reference scale.
What users see
When using a ruler, users work with authentic reference items from across a quality range.
This helps them answer a practical question:
“Where does this new work sit on the scale we already trust?”
Depending on how your organisation has configured the activity, this can help users:
- Benchmark a new response or performance.
- Check whether their professional judgement aligns with the shared standard.
- Support moderation or assessor calibration.
- Discuss what stronger and weaker work looks like in practice.
- Provide evidence for formative feedback or next-step conversations.
RM Compare | NOW illustrates this experience: a user can upload or capture an item, make an initial estimate, complete a small number of comparisons against a trusted standard and see how closely their judgement aligned with it.
Choosing the right ruler
A ruler should be used only for work that is appropriate to its assessment domain.
Before using a ruler, check that the new item is sufficiently comparable with the work used to create it. This may include:
- The subject, skill or competency being assessed.
- The learner or performance level.
- The task type, genre or format.
- The assessment purpose.
- The conditions in which the work was produced.
For example, a ruler created from extended Year 6 narrative writing should not automatically be used for a short persuasive response, a different age group or a different subject without appropriate review.
Clear names, descriptions and access settings in Hub help users select the right ruler.
Roles and access
Your organisation controls who can access and use shared standards.
Access may be managed by licence centre, role, team, project or other organisational structure. For example:
| User group | Typical access |
|---|---|
| Assessment lead | Selects, approves and shares relevant rulers |
| Teacher, assessor or judge | Uses an approved ruler in Live |
| Moderator or reviewer | Reviews the use of a ruler and relevant outcomes |
| Administrator | Manages users, licence centres and permissions |
Use Administration to manage roles, permissions and licence-centre access.
Sharing standards responsibly
When making a ruler available in Live:
- Be clear about its intended purpose: calibration, formative use, moderation, benchmarking or another agreed process.
- Ensure users understand the assessment domain it represents.
- Share it only with users who have the appropriate permission and context.
- Provide supporting guidance where the use is unfamiliar or consequential.
- Review its continued suitability if tasks, curriculum, cohorts or requirements change.
A shared standard becomes valuable when it is both accessible and appropriately governed.
What happens next?
Routine use of a ruler does not automatically change the ruler. New work can be placed against the existing standard while the shared reference scale remains stable.
Over time, organisations may monitor use, review whether the evidence remains relevant and select appropriate new material for a controlled refresh or extension of the standard.
See Maintaining standards in Steady State to learn how shared standards can be reviewed, maintained and developed over time. RM Compare’s ruler model is designed to make comparative-judgement standards reusable across new work and assessment moments, rather than limiting them to a one-off ranking exercise.