Teachers leave grading up to the computer

A computer program developed at the University of Missouri may take some of the tedium out of teaching--it grades papers and offers students writing advice.

Ed Brent, professor of sociology at the Columbia, Mo., university, spent six years developing the program, which is called Qualrus, and has been testing it on his pupils for the past two. It works by scanning text for keywords, phrases and language patterns. Students load papers directly into the system via the Web and get nearly instant feedback.

How can a cold, mechanical computer comprehend the art and nuance of writing? The program is actually quite sophisticated, Brent said. It's not enough to just throw keywords into an essay willy-nilly. The program analyzes sentence and paragraph structure and can ascertain the flow of arguments and ideas. It gives each work a numeric score based on the weight instructors place on various elements of the assignment.

The computer-generated scores count for about a third to a quarter of students' final grade for Brent's class. Students have challenged the scores, but if they don't use the right lingo in their papers, they're out of luck. "In sociology, we want them to learn the terms," Brent said.

With up to 140 students enrolled in his writing-intensive, introductory sociology course, Brent estimates he's saved more than 200 hours of work per semester with Qualrus. The final papers, which he does read, are usually much better as a result of Qualrus, too.

"The quality of the drafts that come to me is much higher because students get so much help from the program," he said.

But so far, he's the only professor at the university who's using the program, even though it's been approved for school-wide use.

Qualrus is not the first such program. High schools across Indiana began using a similar program, called e-rater, to score essays in statewide English tests last year.

That program was designed by Education Testing Service, the nonprofit that administers the SAT and the Graduate Records Examinations or GRE. ETS expects at least 10 more states to adopt automated essay scoring within the next four years.

Meanwhile, Brent, who received a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop Qualrus, is now looking for distributors for the product. He's in talks with several textbook publishers, which he declined to name. Businesses can use the software, too, to sort through ever-mounting stores of digital text, he said.

The name Qualrus is a play on the term "qualitative analysis" and is supposed to evoke the friendly image of a walrus. Brent said he plans to donate 1 percent of profits generated through the sale of the program to the World Wildlife Fund.

The product costs $399 for schools and $699 for businesses per copy.

Taxpayer ripoff

It is very disturbing that Brent was paid with public money (a $100K NSF grant) to develop this program, and is now selling it for a profit (of which he'll donate a generous 1% to the WWF). As a double whammy, much of his profit will come from the taxpayers yet again when it is sold to public schools and universities. By morals and ethics, this program should be released to public domain, since we the taxpayers paid for its development. I thought NSF grants came with conditions attached and were meant for ultimate public benefit, not private gain, but Brent must have uncovered some loophole.

[MacJohn]

No wonder the US is slipping behind...

The American infatuation with gadgets and high-tech "solutions" hits a new low: the "automatic teacher" that autogrades ESSAYS, of all things!

Man, bring on the drones of auto-children that repeat the same buzzwords, catchphrases and cliches. Figures, from a country with a President that doesn't read, hardly thinks and can't utter a coherent thought longer than a 10-word sound bite.

Keep at it, and soon even the Mexican gardeners will have better education and communication skills.

[sanenazok]

why shouldn't they

What you said was wrong on so many levels.

First why should langugage skills of an entire group be bad. Is it because they're gardeners or worse yet because they're Mexican?

Second this paper checking mechanism is nothing more than an advanced grammar checker. You know, the stuff you get in Sociology 101 isn't going to be War and Peace, so either the teacher reads incoherent sentences or lets the computer figure it out. I don't see how this will end diversity in thought or writing patterns. Unless, of course you want to read and correct low quality grammar-free bs.

My problem with this idea is that it's tax-payer funded. How does that make sense.

[DougDbug]

John, Qualrus gives you a C.

I ran your comments through Qualrus.

You got off to a bad start by implying negative things about Qualrus, but you were on your way to an A+ with the gratuitous Bush bashing. (Academic sociologists just love that stuff.) Then you blew it with the insensitivity to minorities. Perhaps if you change Mexican to undocumented you could improve your grade. :)

existing online writing lab for computer scored essays

Check out this website <a class="jive-link-external" href="https://68.104.118.126/" target="_newWindow">https://68.104.118.126/</a> , which is a test pilot for developing similar online paper scoring. The site is not yet finished, but they will give you a free test account if you ask them (use the contact page).
There are several privates schools testing the site for usability and integration with their existing curriculum.

The site usually generates a report with various scores (numbers easily converted to letter grades) for you paper within 5 minutes. The report includes statistics and grammar/usage advice for revising the paper.

Also, the site provides 3 demo accounts: a directed student account, an instructor account, and an independent student account. The instuctor account can view all the papers scored for the linked directed student accounts.

[DougDbug]

Save the animals first!

You would think that a sociology professor with a good understanding of society and culture would realize what kind of reaction he would get by BRAGGING about giving 1% to charity. And this sociology professor doesnt want ANY of his charity going to humans. Lets save the animals first, the humans are only ruining the planet. We would be better off without them!

[volterwd]

I doubt

this thing can mark creativity. And thats what should get the highest amount of marks... and why cant a teacher do this themselves?

[pcLoadLetter]

Why not replace that instructor with a machine?

If the teacher is too lazy to grade papers, then perhaps a machine can be found to replace his lectures amd can answer qestions.

Enforcing good grammar is all well and good, however, there is more to good writing. Just ask my english professors that had a full head of hair until I walked into their class...