C-tools Automated Grading for Online Concept Maps Works Well with a Little Help from “wordnet”

Criterion concept maps developed by instructors in the C-TOOLS project contain numerous expert-generated or “correct” propositions manually created by expert users connecting two object or subject phrases together with a linking phrase. WordNet, an electronic lexical database, was then used to construct additional proposition derivatives by supplying different linking phrases in place of those originally specified by users. Derived propositions were made from original propositions by substituting linking phrase verbs with troponyms, synonyms, and antonyms. During the past year some 1298 students created concept maps (with 35404 propositions) aided by automatic grading and the WordNet® propositions. We have now studied how successful WordNet was at creating valid additional linking words like those generated by experts. By comparing manual assessments of derived propositions to manual assessments of original propositions, the persistence of correctness was evaluated for determinative factors such as frequencies and senses of usage. Results from data analyses are compared to parameters for WordNet usage in order to better determine the potential for the refining of concept map grading algorithms. An empirical approach to word sense relationships is presented as an iterating step to progressively prototype and test optimizations. Category/Categoría: Poster Paper/Artículo Poster