The Open University to develop software for checking papers
14 Mar 2008
The Open Universiteit Nederland is going to develop software for computers to analyse students’ texts and provide feedback and advice.
This will take place within the EU Language Technologies for Lifelong Learning (LTfLL) project that was launched on 10 March. "We aim to use language technology in the education sector to support lecturers and students.”
Assessing portfolios, checking essays and assignments, monitoring weblogs and discussion forums: all this costs lecturers a great deal of time. Good software can take over a lot of this work. Peter van Rosmalen is an OTEC researcher and the LTfLL project leader. He explains: "Language technology is becoming more advanced. If we need a telephone number, we talk to a computer and it answers us. On websites we can enter a question and the computer will provide the answer. We aim to give texts to computers and have the computer comment on the texts and assess them."
Time-saving
Peter van Rosmalen envisages many possibilities. Computers can look at the words used, at sentences and concepts. From these, they can determine what the text or discussion is about, what the level of the 'speaker' is and even provide feedback. A computer as guidance counsellor? Mr Van Rosmalen is not willing to go that far. Lecturers will determine how the software is used. They can indeed have the analysis and feedback produced by the computer sent directly to the student or use the information themselves as preparation for their own response to the student. They can also give the system the task of keeping an eye on a discussion forum and to give a signal when a particular subject is discussed. "Whichever way you look at it, good software can save lecturers a lot of time."
International
LTfLL is an international project but that does not mean that it specifically focuses on the English language. Mr Van Rosmalen: "A lot of work has already been done for English. And we will, of course, use this. But in our project, we are working with ten partners from seven countries in which six different languages are spoken. We will test all the software we develop in different languages, including Dutch."
About OTEC
OTEC is the Educational Technology Expertise Centre of the Open Universiteit Nederland. It is involved in research, development and implementation in the fields of education and educational technology. The Language Technologies for Lifelong Learning project is one of six EU projects (selected from over 150 proposals) that will be launched this year aimed at developing educational technology. The Open University is involved in three of these projects, twice as a coordinator. The LTfLL project will run for three years.