Humans, the Latest MOOC Feature

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/09/02/massachusetts-institute-technology-experiments-instructor-grading-massive-open

by danso • 10 years ago

39 5 10 years ago

insidehighered.com

inputcoffee2• 10 years ago

I love that this story basically contradicts another trend that is in Hacker News at the same time:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12414764

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/09/02/gradescope-brings-a...

arjun8102• 10 years ago

I'm one of the founders of Gradescope (the company in the other post).

I see where you're coming from, but I actually think that both of these posts describe ways for students to get more open ended assessment, rather than automatically graded multiple choice questions (i.e. what's typical in MOOCs and Scantrons).

inputcoffee2• 10 years ago

I agree with that, but would you say that the "trend", if there is one, is towards providing that through AI, or more humans?

If I recall, they had computers grade the GMAT essays for at least 10 years, but they had to have a human in the loop because that is the ultimate measure for whether a computer is "correct" in terms of grading an essay.

Aenima• 10 years ago

The two scenarios are vastly different in my opinion. Grading multiple choice and short answer questions in parallel is a much simpler task than grading a written essay. The essay is complex human thought, not a formal system as in multiple choice or near formal system as in short answers.

The chemistry and engineering diagram grading scenario is closer to the first cases as well. The diagram is a formal visual representation of the underlying solution. There is less variance in the range of correct-looking diagrams than the written word. If the question was more complex, "Please draw a UML diagram of a complete user authentication system," then a human would have to grade it. There are an infinite amount of ways to design and diagram a solution to an open-ended problem.

Humans, the Latest MOOC Feature

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