In the not-too-distant future, students might have their essays and papers graded not by professors or teaching assistants, but by computers.

Dr. Harold Elder, a UA professor of economics, agreed to use a program this spring semester from Cengage Learning called Write Experience. Write Experience will use artificial intelligence to grade students’ written assignments instantly based on the accuracy and proficiency of their writing.

“It is important for students to learn hands-on to accomplish improving their writing skills,” Elder said. He said his goal is to make his students efficient writers.

Elder, as well as economics graduate student Will Walsh, will use the program in their microeconomics classes. In the program, students are asked to access and submit four writing assignments on the Internet. As the students write their essays directly into a submission field on the website, a feature called My Tutor will analyze the students’ essays in real time. Another feature, called My Editor, observes the students’ writing mechanics in real time as well. Both features were created with the intention of giving students feedback about their writing.

As part of this pilot program, Cengage will compare the computer-given grades with those given by actual people.

“Cengage will make sure the computer grading is in line with the human grading,” Walsh said.

Cengage was founded in 2007 to help different associations around the world, including universities, with solutions for learning. Elder said he was approached by a representative of Cengage with the new Write Experience system.

Elder said he has used a program from Cengage before—a program called Aplia, used for grading homework online.

“We hope applying class lessons in a written format will add to their understanding of the subject,” Walsh said.

Before there was Writing Experience in microeconomics 110, clickers were used. “We have used clickers in these classes before, but nothing like Write Experience” Walsh said.

Both Elder and Walsh said they feel this is a good program, but it will take time to see what it does.

“We are evaluating how it works and we will see how successful it is,” Elder said.

“I think [Write Experience] will be harder, but I won’t be sure until I’ve used it,” said John Baber, a freshman in microeconomics. Baber also said that he feels that this type of system for grading writing will be used in the future.

Write Experience may be used in the future depending on its performance this spring.