Friday, April 17, 1998
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 11
Computers to evaluate essays
Teachers to use new programs to score writing
The Associated Press
BOULDER. Colo. — The time-honored college essay — where students are supposed to exhibit concise writing and persuasive arguments — could soon be read and graded by the artificial intelligence of a new computer program.
Some see a savior for overworked teachers, others reassurance for students suspicious their poor grades come from bored, ignorant or vengeful teachers.
Critics say it misses the point that essays teach communication between people.
"I think it's a terrible idea. Education is not about just spewing back information but assimilating it in language," said Mary Burgan, executive director of the American Association of University Professors.
The Intelligent Essay Assesor software, in development for 10 years, is not yet ready for widespread use in the classroom. Its creators have applied for a patent and want feedback from educators.
"The program has perfect consistency in grading, an attribute that human graders almost never have," said Darrell Laham, a doctoral student at the University of Colorado who helped with the development. "The system does not get bored, rushed, sleepy, impatient or forgetful."
Thomas Landauer, a university psychology professor who worked on the software, was to present it today at a meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Diego. Peter Foltz, an assistant psychology professor at New Mexico State University, also helped.
This program does more than just count words or analyze mechanics and grammar, like earlier essay scorers. Landauer said it mathematically determines how well students understand the material they are taught.
he said. "It's most appropriate when testing knowledge content rather than elegance of writing. It assesses whether the student understands what's in the textbook."
"It's useful for all subjects."
It understands through a new type of artificial intelligence, Laham said.
"In a sense, it tries to mimic the function of the human brain," he said.
First, the program is fed information through online textbooks or other sources. It determines mathematically what words should appear, but is flexible enough to accept words with similar meanings, such as physician and doctor.
Then the professor grades enough essays to provide a good statistical sample, and feeds those results to the computer. Laham said student essays received the same grade as the human-graded essays to which they were most closely matched.
The grade on the new program, however, is still out.
"It would be cheaper and more reliable. But we need to be careful about using it. This country overvalues standardires responses," said Monty Neill, acting executive director at Fair Test, a Cambridge, Mass.-based nonprofit group that advocates testing and assessment reform.
"Machines have real trouble with unusually creative students," he said.
"Without interaction, there's no teaching." she said.
Burgan, the head of the professors' association, said a teacher fails to connect with students if he or she assigns an essay and then passes the grading off to a computer.
Some students would rather be confident their grade is fair, Foltz said. When he asked students in his undergraduate psychology classes if they would rather a computer or a person graded their papers, they all chose the computer. He did not say what reasons they gave.
"That's just weird," said Katrina Martin. A 21-year-old English and journalism major at Colorado. "I want a professor to look at my essay so that I know what I'm writing is correct.
"I don't want some computer to just spit out a grade," she said.
The Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. — A would-be doctor who claimed he was black and lepers had subsidized his education is suing Princeton for revealing those fabrications to medical schools. He admits he lied but argues Princeton violated his privacy.
Rommel Nobay graduated from Princeton in 1989. He was accepted to Vanderbilt University's medical school in 1991, and to Georgetown, Tufts and Dartmouth in 1994.
But he claims the schools withdrew their offers or pressured Nobay to withdraw his applications after being notified of discrepancies in his record by his Princeton adviser, Jane Y. Sharaf.
Nobay admitted in federal court this week he had lied about academic achievements and other elements of his life. For example, he was not a National Merit
Scholar and a family of lepers didn't donate half their beggings to support his dream.
Nobay sued Princeton in 1995, claiming defamation, invasion of privacy and breach of contract.
"The case isn't about Rommel's credibility. It's about whether Princeton respects or even understands the right to privacy," his lawyer, Norm Pattis, said Wednesday during a break in trial of the lawsuit. He said his client had lied and told half-truths out of insecurity and fear.
Nobay, 30, claims Princeton had an implicit contract with students to provide accurate, but positive recommendations.
Princeton argues it is protected by qualified privilege, which is typically sought in cases in which it is necessary to provide true information to third parties or the public. If granted, defendants are liable only if actual malice can be proven.
Dean Nancy Malkiel testified that Princeton was obligated to alert the medical schools about Nobay's problems with being truthful.
"I think the schools continue to count on that fact ... that they're getting the straight scoop from medical advisers." she said.
Nobay was born in New York but lived in Kenya until he was 5, when his father took a banking job in the United States. His parents are Kenyans, whose ancestors were from the Portuguese colony of Goa, now part of India. He says his heritage is a mix of Portuguese, Arabic and black African. He was raised in Los Angeles.
During a deposition last year, Nobay was asked about his race by a Princeton lawyer.
"Whether I have Negroid blood in me is basically what you're asking, and the answer is I don't know," Nobay said. "I believe I do."
Fewer Black students use World Wide Web
WASHINGTON — Caucasian students in high school and college are far more likely than African Americans to have home computers and use the World Wide Web, even after accounting for differences in income, according to a new study.
The Associated Press
"A significant segment of our society is in danger of being denied equal access to the Internet," the authors said.
The study, published today in Science magazine, found Caucasian people in general are more likely to have a computer at home and to have used the Web recently. But the biggest disparities surfaced when comparing students, the most disturbing instance yet of when race matters in Internet access, the study said.
"We can't explain that by income," sala Donna L. Hoffman, an associate professor at Vanderbilt University, who helped write the study.
"There must be some racial or cultural or social factors," she said. "It really needs to be looked into."
The study indicated 73 percent of Caucasian students had a computer at their homes — a key indicator of frequent Internet use — but only 33 percent of African-American students did. The gap remained even when researchers accounted for differences in income.
Among all ages, 44 percent of Caucasians owned a home computer, compared with 29 percent of African Americans.
The study was based on telephone interviews of 5,813 people in December 1996 and January 1997 by Nielsen Media Research. There was no margin of error provided.
"The Internet is taking an increasingly important role in the global economy." Hoffman said. "It's obvious that as ... more and more information is available online, you're not going to be able to participate. The rewards of this democratic communication that people are suggesting will come from the Internet ... won't be available to everyone."
The study indicated 59 percent of Caucasians had used the Web in the past six months, compared with 31 percent of African Americans. The gap was widest among races when people did not own a home computer. Researchers said that suggests Caucasian students without their own computers are finding other places — such as schools, libraries or cybercafes — to access the Internet.
"There must be some racial or cultural or social factors. It really needs to be looked into." Donna Hoffman
Vanderbilt researcher/author
"When there is no home computer, white students are more than twice as likely to have used the Web in the past six months and more than three times as likely to have used the Web in the past week," Hoffman said. "That is an astonishing difference. White students, but not African American students, are finding other ways to access the Internet. It's a very disquieting result."
Among students who had access to a computer at home, there were only negligible differences in Web use.
Hoffman said the report showed the importance of creating Internet access for African Americans in places such as libraries and community centers.
Researchers also said African-American families were nearly twice as likely as Caucasian families to say they planned to purchase a home computer within the next six months. In addition, slightly more African Americans than Caucasians said they were interested in Web TV or other devices that would offer inexpensive Internet access. That is significant, the report said, because it shows African Americans want access to the Web.
Jamal White, an African-American engineering student at Iowa State University, remembered buying a home computer in high school, which he still uses to send email to his family in Washington, D.C., and for term-paper research. His family bought a computer shortly after he took his to college.
"To some extent, you could tell a larger number of the white students, percentage-wise, did own computers," he said. "I guess I wasn't fully aware of it then."
But White said he could not guess why the racial disparities existed.
Hoffman said the study also suggested far more African American are using the Web — about 5 million as of January 1997 and 1.4 million within the past week — than previous estimates that 1 million African Americans were using the Internet.
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