Artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay. It has made a huge impact on professional and academic landscapes. In fact, according to a new IDC report based on 509 higher education institutions in the US, 99.4% of them said that AI will be instrumental to their competitiveness in the next three years.
However, AI has posed profound ethical and moral dilemmas surrounding its place in academia. Since its launch in 2022, ChatGPT has transformed many industries, including education. That includes the way we grade papers. It has gained popularity primarily for its ability to scour the internet and write human-like text.
With its ability to digest bodies of information, develop lesson plans, and deliver instantaneous, more meaningful feedback, one question remains.
Can AI grade essays effectively?
ChatGPT Is Not the Answer for Grading Essays
By now, most people have experimented with ChatGPT, asking it to help with one thing or another. There’s no denying that it has made remarkable strides. But, its capabilities in grading academic essays are not always up to scratch.
Here’s why.
Lack of Specific Data
ChatGPT’s main limitation comes from its inability to access specific university standards and their regulatory systems.
Each institution has its own grading criteria, so it’s impossible to train a universal rule into the machine learning system. These criteria are often very specific, honing in on aspects like coherence, originality, and grammar.
So, you can try to use ChatGPT to grade papers, but it might miss out on some of these nuances. You can attempt to train it to the specifics of your university. For example, you might tell it to focus on critical thinking and grammatical precision. But it won’t always work.
We ran a few academic essays through the AI tool, and ChatGPT gave inconsistent and non-specific feedback. It awarded different scores to essays that would garner the same grade in real life.
Sampling Inaccuracies
ChatGPT’s samples for responses are diverse but often fail to meet the specific academic standards required for grading essays. These selections cover a variety of information from the internet that may contain biases and errors.
So, when ChatGPT attempts to analyze a student essay, it might not be accurate. It might evaluate the essay using various sources like academic papers, blogs, and informal writings from the internet. This leads to inconsistencies in grading because it cannot distinguish between high-quality academic sources and less reliable content.
This leads to grades that are either too lenient or excessively harsh. Both are detrimental to fair academic assessment. Humans are for the moment, better writers and better graders too.
Less Contextual Understanding
To accurately grade an essay, you need an understanding of its context. An effective essay grader needs to grasp the subject’s nuances and coherence of the argument. They also need to evaluate the evidence and its relevance.
Despite being an advanced language model, ChatGPT lacks the depth of understanding required for this task. OpenAI’s software can definitely generate responses that appear substantial. However, it lacks the ability to address these subtleties.
Nuanced Feedback
When you’re grading an essay, you need to provide detailed feedback. You should acknowledge creativity and offer constructive criticism, suggesting specific areas for improvement.
However, ChatGPT often misses nuanced arguments. It may provide generic feedback that neglects the essay’s unique strengths, weaknesses, and intricacies.
Effective feedback from teachers should pinpoint instances of excellent student work and areas that need improvement. For example, a human grader can identify a logical flaw in a student’s argument. Meanwhile, ChatGPT provides vague suggestions.
Ethical Considerations and Bias
AI-generated feedback can also raise ethical concerns. ChatGPT’s feedback comes from its training data, which may be biased. It makes sense, then, that AI might turn back work that contains biases. AI bias manifests in several forms, from subtle language preferences to overt prejudices. This can carry over into its grading.
To counter these biases, continuous monitoring and adjustment of the training data are necessary. However, this is a resource-intensive task.
Introducing Smodin’s AI grader
So, ChatGPT isn’t the best for grading student essays. You’ll need a more specialized tool. Smodin’s AI grader is a promising alternative, designed specifically to address the challenges of essay grading.
Here’s why.
Tailored To Academic Standards
Smodin’s AI grader understands and applies specific academic grading standards. It incorporates criteria that align with those that universities use. As a result, its evaluations are consistent and fair.
We also ran an experiment with ChatGPT. We asked it to write an essay of the highest possible academic standard. Then, after copy-pasting the essay back into the software, we asked for a grade out of 6. ChatGPT wrote an essay, then awarded itself a 4. So while you can get ChatGPT to help with writing essays, it’s not always accurate at applying grading criteria.
By integrating tailored grading, Smodin’s AI technology can assess essays with unmatched precision.
Accurate Sampling
Unlike ChatGPT, which relies on a broad range of samples, Smodin’s AI grader uses accurate sampling methods. It draws from a database of academic papers and grading standards, ensuring precise reliability. This also reduces the likelihood of inaccuracies and biases.
Using academic databases allows Smodin’s AI grader to align its evaluations closely with the expectations of colleges. This ensures that students receive grades that actually reflect their performance.
Comprehensive Feedback
One of the best features of Smodin is its ability to offer detailed and nuanced feedback. It can identify specific strengths and weaknesses in individual essays while providing constructive criticism and feedback.
This advanced tool helps students identify areas for improvement in their papers, which is crucial for developing writing skills.
Using ChatGPT results in vague feedback. We asked ChatGPT to grade an essay, and it provided feedback like “improve clarity.” Meanwhile, Smodin’s AI grader provides meaningful feedback that fosters an ongoing learning opportunity.
Reliable and Ethical
These two concepts are at the core of academic work–and at the heart of Smodin’s AI grader. The tool minimizes bias and ensures fair evaluations. By adhering to academic standards and providing transparent feedback, it supports academic integrity.
Smodin’s commitment to ongoing learning is what sets the AI grader apart.
How Smodin’s AI Grader Works
Smodin’s AI grader is straightforward to use–that’s part of how we designed it! The process is easy once you’ve accessed the software. So here’s how to use it.
1. Setting Up the Tool
First, set up the Smodin AI grader. You’ll need to create an account on the Smodin platform and access the grading tool. The setup process is intuitive and typically takes just a few minutes.
Now, all you need to do is enter your login details and choose your package. From there, you can familiarize yourself with the interface.
2. Inputting Essays for Evaluation
When you’ve set up the tool, you can add the essays you want to grade. The platform allows you to upload documents directly or copy and paste the text into the grading interface. Then, the AI grader processes the essay according to the specific academic criteria.
This step is crucial because it ensures the tool has all the information it needs to provide a proper evaluation.
3. Interpreting the Results
After processing the essay, Smodin’s AI grader will provide a detailed report. It scores aspects like grammar, coherence, argumentation, and originality. That way, writers can adjust specific areas of the essay accordingly.
Teachers can also use these reports to understand the essays written by their students. It can enhance grading accuracy and offer further student guidance.
With total transparency in the grading process, you can trust that the grade is accurate.
4. Combining AI Grading With Human Oversight
While Smodin’s AI grader is thorough, it’s still best to combine it with human opinion. Doing this means you get the best of both worlds. Teachers can leverage AI-generated feedback as a starting point, but they should supplement it with their expertise, too.
Ultimately, humans are better writers and graders, but you can still use tools like ChatGPT to help. Better yet, use Smodin!
AI software is perfect for enhancing efficiency in labor-intensive tasks, but it’s not there to replace human involvement.
Try Smodin for Reliable Essay Grading
AI has transformed so many industries already, and with Smodin’s grading tool, education can also benefit. This AI technology does the heavy lifting, streamlining grading by pinpointing areas for improvement.
So why not become a part of the future of education with Smodin’s AI grader? Join Smodin today to see how it can streamline your academic essay grading.