Rants

Posted on 8 Jun 2009 at 15:27

 

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...Mel Croucher scoffs at the idea of computers taking over from teachers when it comes to marking essays.

MI5 has advertised the job of Chief Boffin for Britain's security services. Naturally, I have applied. All I have to do is protect the national infrastructure against cyber-attack. The advert says "the post will only take up two days a week" so I could keep the day job going and save the country at weekends.

My only problem is with the exam. It's so long since I sat one that I'm out of touch with the human processes involved. I have written artificial intelligence programs, though, designed to fool human examiners into thinking computers are smart. My wife, on the other hand, is a university examiner in English and I know for a fact that the best artificial intelligence software is rubbish compared to any human examiner.

I suppose I could enlist in the £4,400 MA in Social Media course at Birmingham City University. A degree in Twitter just about sums up the way education is going. We are no longer dumbing down; we are descending to the deepest pit of idiocy. But if students need a degree to tell their arse from their elbow, computerised marking is about to ram the latter straight up the former. I'm not talking about marking the sort of exams where answers are either right or wrong. I'm talking about machines assessing that most subtle form of human expression, the English language essay.

Making a mark

The Intelligent Essay Assessor has been developed by PTE Academic, a branch of the mighty Pearson empire. It is an internet-based system and, starting this October, it will begin to replace human beings to assess English-speaking students in the UK.

According to Pearson, its software is "based primarily on content and meaning rather than on surface features such as punctuation or keywords". Well, whoopee! They're going to mark English exams without bothering about the actual English. But that's OK, because they've got security covered. Each Exam Processing Centre exploits state-of-the-art biometrics, digital photographs, fingerprints and various other "stringent security measures to verify the identity of the test-taker". If all else fails, perhaps they can use waterboarding to replace the teacher actually knowing who her students are.

There is no way that software can pick up on the subtleties, crossings-out, somnambulism, syntax, discourse analysis, devious cheating methods, weak bladders, dialects, social nuances, suicidal tendencies and bribes with which human examiners routinely deal.

When I ask "how does a computer recognise a good essay?" I receive the following reply from Pearson: "When a test taker's essay is submitted for scoring, the system immediately measures the meaning of the essay. It then compares the essay to training essays, looking for similarities, and assigns a holistic score in part by placing the essay in a category with the most similar training essays. Analytic scoring occurs in much the same way. For each trait, the system assesses that trait in the student essay, compares it to the training essays, and then categorises the trait in question."

I am utterly dismayed by this deluded piffle. I no longer wish to protect the national infrastructure against cyber-attack. It is already a lost cause.

Author: Mel Croucher