This paper reports the findings of an empirical investigation, which set out to test a set of rainbow essay exercises. The rainbow diagrams are pictorial representations of formal graphs that are derived automatically from student essays. They were designed to allow students to discover how key concepts in a well written essay are connected together. The students would then be able to compare a...

The purpose of this essay is to show how credit markets influence development and to argue that the impact of improvements in credit markets is quantitatively significant. The essay first establishes the fact that access to credit is limited, emphasizing the magnitudes. It then goes on to the potential importance of financial sector development, again quantifying the impact. Toward the end of t...

Although von Recklinghausen, in 1882, was the first to describe the pathology of the disease, it is interesting to note that one of our own countrymen, Robert W. Smith, after research in two cases, published an account of the condition in 1849. Von Recklinghausen, however, was the first to offer the now accepted theory of neuro-fibromatosis. The disease is characterized by multiple painless nod...

This study examined the construct validity of the e-rater automated essay scoring engine as an alternative to human scoring in the context of TOEFL essay writing. Analyses were based on a sample of students who repeated the TOEFL within a short time period. Two e-rater scores were investigated in this study, the first based on optimally predicting the human essay score and the second based on e...

Automating the task of scoring short handwritten student essays is considered. The goal is to assign scores which are comparable to those of human scorers by coupling two AI technologies: optical handwriting recognition and automated essay scoring. The test-bed is that of essays written by children in reading comprehension tests. The process involves several image-level operations: removal of p...

This report describes the development of grade norms for timed-writing performance in two modes of writing: persuasive and descriptive. These norms are based on objective and automatically computed measures of writing quality in grammar, usage, mechanics, style, vocabulary, organization, and development. These measures are also used in the automated essay scoring system e-rater V.2. Norms were ...

technology application: the Criterion Online Essay Evaluation Service, a web-based system that provides automated scoring and evaluation of student essays. Criterion has two complementary applications: (1) Critique Writing Analysis Tools, a suite of programs that detect errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics, that identify discourse elements in the essay, and that recognize potentially undesir...

This essay is an exploration of the history and methodologies of collective narrative projects, and their relationship to collective knowledge projects and methodologies. By examining different forms of conscious, contributory, and unwitting participation, the essay attempts to develop a richer understanding of successful large-scale collaborative projects. The essay then examines largescale ar...