PVCC Puma Press: December 2006

In a new trend in outsourcing, teachers can now have hundreds of their students papers graded in 24-48 hours, each precisely marked with writing and grammar tips, without grading a single paper.

This new, technological solution would outsource students’ work electronically to countries including the United States, India or even South America.

At PVCC on Wednesday, Oct. 18; Dr. Chandru Rajam, president of EduMetry Learning Outcomes Management, visited PVCC to introduce English faculty to a new procedure for grading heavy workloads.

English division chairman, John Nelson, English faculty members and vice president of learning at PVCC, Bob Bendotti, were among those who attended.

Bendotti says, he attended a conference this past summer and met Dr. Rajam who provides this service for English faculties.

“They thought perhaps there is a technological solution to help English faculties,” says Bendotti.”

Bendotti says the idea is to take an English faculty member who has stacks of student papers and to allow them to outsource the grading. Bendotti says this change in the grading workload would allow faculty to refocus their work and make it easier for them to spend more time on teaching and mentoring situations.

The new program would “assist English faculties with their workloads, not reduce it,” says Bendotti.

“If the English faculty wanted to try this, the faculty member would have communications with the company and the virtual teaching assistant,” says Bendotti.

Bendotti says before a school tries outsourcing, a representative of the company meets with English faculty and they agree on a grading rubric and expectations.

Using this outsourcing program, students would write and submit their papers electronically via computer and instead of forwarding them to the teacher they would forward them to a virtual TA.

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	The English faculty has decided not to explore this option at this time
	—Bob Bendotti Vice President of Learning
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Bendotti says that the virtual TA is really a person who has a minimum of a master’s degree and possibly a doctoral degree in English. Some virtual TA’s have also been through English speakers’ dialect training.

Within 48 hours students would receive their papers back graded and the teacher would receive copies, too.

After students receive their papers back, they can click on highlighted boxes that are programmed by the virtual TA to tell them what was wrong or give feedback and alternatives.

Students would also have total confidentiality; no one would know the students’ names because a number would be associated with the assignment instead.

Bendotti says it usually seems when English teachers grade students’ papers, the papers graded first are checked the most thoroughly, and the teacher generally finds everything needing to be fixed, but by the time the teachers gets to the 50th paper, he or she seems to be more lenient and less critical. He says the virtual TA would have the same consistency and quality with all papers.

The virtual TA would also let the teacher know what errors were found most often on a student’s paper, so the teacher would know what areas to focus on with students.

Each paper graded by the virtual TA has a price, but Bendotti says the price is negotiable with the company.

Since there is a price, Bendotti says, the college would have to find some way to offset the cost. He says that one option is to raise the limit of 25 students by five in English classrooms.

The EduMetry system has the ability to compose formal, informal, informational and analytical presentations and reports. The system also provides help with presentations and formal speeches, e-mail and an archive of multiple drafts of students’ work in progress.

Bendotti says for now, the English faculty has decided not to explore this option.

“There was no effort to compel our faculty at this point in time and they would prefer not to, says Bendotti, “ We felt it might lose teacher connection with the student.”

Bendotti says that if the English faculty at PVCC wishes, they may do a sample run where a faculty member could send in a set of papers through the outsourcing system and evaluate the program.

Dr. Rajam has been going to conferences all over the world and one of the universities using his new program is Wright State University.