Computer Program Makes Essay Grading Easier

phresno writes "c|Net is running a short article on Prof. Bent at the Columbia, Mo., University. The Prof. has developed a computer program which he now uses to grade his sociology students' essays. He claims the program can discern content, and argument flow within sentence and paragraph structure, and has saved him over two hundred hours of reading per semester. How long before he's replaced entirely by his own program to cut down on staff costs?"

Comments

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not so sure I like the idea of a computer grading my work.. I spent hours making it, but the guy doesn't even give it the time of day....
Angst

Structure

[CHESTER COPPERPOT]

"The program analyzes sentence and paragraph structure and can ascertain the flow of arguments and ideas."

So it measures structure and argument.

How's it going to measure creativity of thought? Are we going to just pump out logic machines from colleges?

Re:Structure

[Pxtl]

Given the abysmal failure of most people to demonstrate any mental flow of logic and ideas, but who have tons of very creative thoughts about reality, I think I'd appreciate more people like that. But maybe I follow too much politics.

Not the world's best plan

[SparksMcGee]

The only way that a computer program can possibly analyze a paper fully as a paper is if it read it as a human. heuristic algorithms, however sophisticated, just aren't enough for things of this sort of importance--after all, the profs are paid to grade (well, them or the grad students). It doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to just throw in keywords and make sure that you use proper syntax in order to fool this thing, albeit the prof says keywords alone aren't enough. I find the claim that his program can "analyze argument flow" quite dubious. I'll stick to getting my several grands' worth out of my courses, thank you very much.

Re:Cheating

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd read the fucking article, you'd have known that the students get instact feedback on their scores, so it effectively is a filter for better papers.

Re:Cheating

[RazorX90]

God, imagine what test prep courses like Princeton Review are going to do. Essay writing for the SAT will turn into a new branch of science. They'll teach you exactly what your ratio of compound sentences, to complex sentences, to clauses, to action verbs, etc. should be.

More importantly...

[Chris Pimlott]

What does this say about the field of Sociology? :P

Cheating? Teaching!

[ImaLamer]

Why not give the program to the English department and use it for teaching?

Would be great for high-school students. Have students write an essay or paper and analyze it right in front of them. Then the program highlights their errors (or what the program perceives as an error). Even better, complaining students would help fix bugs in the software because they know their intent - they could send off a highlighted error-ridden version to the developers with an explanation of why they think they are right.

Better yet, give it to everyone! It's not like you can cheat, you still have to rewrite and resubmit your papers. Shit, I say build it into text boxes on slashdot and wikipedia to start!

please do not hold this post to the standard of the Qualrus (real page of the software)

So what?

[raehl]

I have lots of programs that save me hours of "doing my fucking job". They're called scripts, and it's called efficiency.

If I can write a program to automate a menial task so I don't have to do it, then by all means, I should do it. If grading undergrad papers is a menial task that can be automated, then it should be automated.

I mean, just because a freshman writes a bad paper doesn't mean a professor has to actually read it.