ETS e-rater® Grammar-Checking Technology Now Available to Turnitin Users

Powerful tool saves time for instructors by providing corrective feedback on students' written work

OAKLAND, Calif., Aug. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- iParadigms, creators of Turnitin® and the leader in plagiarism prevention and online grading, today announced that the Educational Testing Service's (ETS) e-rater® grammar-checking technology is now available within GradeMark®, the online paperless grading tool from Turnitin that allows instructors to mark and comment on student papers. The integration with GradeMark provides a complete online mark-up tool that automatically delivers corrective feedback on student writing, allowing instructors to focus on substantive content while saving them time spent marking papers.

A webcast reviewing the new e-rater features in Turnitin will be held on Monday, August 22^nd. Register now: http://pages.turnitin.com/erater0811.html.

Instant Comments on Grammar, Usage, Mechanics, Style and Spelling

The ETS e-rater engine provides instructors with instant diagnostic feedback on grammar, usage, mechanics, style and spelling to augment their assessment of student work. The e-rater engine is based on more than ten years of linguistic research. Recognized for its consistency and accuracy, ETS uses the technology in combination with human raters to assess student writing in leading standardized tests, including the TOEFL® and GRE®.

The ETS e-rater marks appear in a single view within GradeMark and can be layered with Turnitin's other integrated writing tools, OriginalityCheck® for plagiarism prevention and PeerMark® for online peer reviewing. Instructors can easily expand, edit or remove individual marks on the student paper or choose to expose or hide entire categories within the application. Once papers are marked, students can review ETS e-rater marks and drill down into grade-appropriate handbooks that provide additional information on the comments, creating an effective learning opportunity for students.

"GradeMark and the e-rater tool have already become the standard I use to mark papers," says Heather Schulman, English Instructor at Anderson High School in Austin, TX and a beta-user of the program. "The service allows me to respond to students' writing and ideas rather than just correcting their grammar."

Less Time Marking, More Time Teaching

The integration of the ETS e-rater engine with Turnitin reduces the overwhelming amount of time instructors spend grading and marking papers. For instance, students can review ETS e-rater feedback prior to submitting their final evaluated drafts and make necessary changes in spelling, usage, grammar, mechanics and style.  This decreases the amount of time instructors have to spend marking and offers students more time learning how to properly edit their writing.

"With six classes and 170 students, grading and marking takes a lot of my time," says Schulman. "The new features from Turnitin will save me hours on each writing assignment."

Improving Writing Across the Curriculum

The ETS e-rater tool with GradeMark serves instructors across the curriculum, allowing instructors who do not have the time to focus on written work to provide detailed guidance to improve student writing. The integration will also serve English as a Second Language (ESL) instructors by providing students with access to grammar handbooks in their native languages.

"Instructors who use GradeMark reduce the time spent grading by 30 to 50 percent while providing better feedback on students' papers," says Chris Caren, iParadigms president and CEO. "The addition of e-rater enhances the feedback students receive from GradeMark while broadening our assessment technology to serve a much wider audience."

About Turnitin and iParadigms LLC
iParadigms, LLC is the world's leading provider of web-based solutions for plagiarism prevention. The company's products include Turnitin, used by educators worldwide to check students' papers for originality, to enable web-based peer review and for digital grading of student work. iParadigms' iThenticate solution is the leader in plagiarism detection in research, publishing and many other commercial markets. The company's solutions check millions of documents each month and are used in over 100 countries. iParadigms is headquartered in Oakland, CA with an international office located in Newcastle, United Kingdom. iParadigms is backed by Warburg Pincus.

http://www.turnitin.com  and http://www.ithenticate.com

About ETS

At ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and post-secondary education, as well as conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded as a nonprofit in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL^® and TOEIC^® tests, the GRE^® tests and The Praxis Series™ assessments — in more than 180 countries worldwide. www.ets.org

SOURCE iParadigms, LLC