ReaderBench Learns Dutch: Building a Comprehensive Automated Essay Scoring System for Dutch Language

Automated Essay Scoring has gained a wider applicability and usage with the integration of advanced Natural Language Processing techniques which enabled in-depth analyses of discourse in order capture the specificities of written texts. In this paper, we introduce a novel Automatic Essay Scoring method for Dutch language, built within the Readerbench framework, which encompasses a wide range of textual complexity indices, as well as an automated segmentation approach. Our method was evaluated on a corpus of 173 technical reports automatically split into sections and subsections, thus forming a hierarchical structure on which textual complexity indices were subsequently applied. The stepwise regression model explained 30.5% of the variance in students’ scores, while a Discriminant Function Analysis predicted with substantial accuracy (75.1%) whether they are high or low performance students.This study is part of the RAGE project. The RAGE project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 644187. This publication reflects only the author's view. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains

Editorial: ICT and the capability approach

Values and TechnologyTechnology, Policy and Managemen

Textual Complexity and Discourse Structure in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning

International audienceComputer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) technologies play an increasing role simultaneously with the appearance of the Social Web. The polyphonic analysis method based on Bakhtin’s dialogical model reflects the multi-voiced nature of a CSCL conversation and the related learning processes. We propose the extension of the model and the previous applications of the polyphonic method to both collaborative CSCL chats and individual metacognitive essays performed by the same learners. The model allows a tight correlation between collaboration and textual complexity, all integrated in an implemented system, which uses Natural Language Processing techniques