College Educators from across U.S. Take on Ways Online Classes Can Help or Wreck a Student’s Hopes for a Good Education

COLUMBUS, OHIO—Faculty and staff members from colleges and universities across the U.S. met in Ohio over the weekend to address the some of the toughest issues facing student success in America’s higher education system. The rapid drive to move students’ classes from campuses to online and the Gold Rush mentality behind many entrepreneurs pushing the…

Annotated Bibliography of Machine Grading of Essays, Part 2

Ericsson, Patricia Freitag & Haswell, Richard H. (Eds.). (2006). Machine Scoring of Student Essays: Truth and Consequences. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.* A compilation of seventeen original essays by teachers of composition discussing the assessment methodology and educational impact of commercial computer-based essay-rating software such as the College Board’s WritePlacer Plus, ACT’s e-Write, ETS’s e-rater, Measurement, Inc.’s Project Essay…

Annotated Bibliography on Machine Grading of Essays, Part 1

Prepared by the NCTE Task Force on Writing Assessment The following annotated bibliography on machine scoring and evaluation of essay-length writing is based on the 2012 published bibliography in the Journal of Writing Assessment 5 (compiled by Richard Haswell, Whitney Donnelly, Vicki Hester, Peggy O’Neill, and Ellen Schendel). The bibliography was compiled by reviewing recent scholarship on machine scoring…

Machine Scoring Fails the Test

Approved by the NCTE Executive Committee, April 2013 [A] computer could not measure accuracy, reasoning, adequacy of evidence, good sense, ethical stance, convincing argument, meaningful organization, clarity, and veracity in your essay. If this is true I don’t believe a computer would be able to measure my full capabilities and grade me fairly. — Akash, student…

Open Letter from Robert Meister, CUCFA, to Daphne Koller, Founder of Coursera

On May 10th, CUCFA President Robert Meister sent the following open letter to Coursera founder Daphne Koller: Can Venture Capital Deliver on the Promise of the Public University? An Open Letter to Daphne Koller, Co-Founder and Co-President of Coursera and Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University Dear Professor Koller, Because I share your vision…

Recent Graduate Testifies before Ohio Senate on Voter-Suppression Measure Affecting College Students

In an earlier post, “Please Sign Petitions Supporting the Voting Rights of College Students in Ohio and North Carolina” [https://academeblog.org/2013/05/11/please-sign-petitions-supporting-the-voting-rights-of-college-students-in-ohio-and-north-carolina/], I asked readers to sign a petition protesting against an attempt to discourage more than 32,000 out-of-state students attending Ohio universities from casting their ballots in Ohio. What follows is the testimony of Stuart McIntyre,…

Sexual Assaults on Campus

In a very recent post on guns on campus, I selectively surveyed the statistics on violent crime in the 2012 report on crimes reported on college campuses. I cited the statistics on sexual assaults but noted that those crimes have apparently been very under-reported, at least on some campuses. Female students on four campuses in…