The news thread

[Venneh]

Some Papers Are Uploaded to Bangalore to Be Graded

By Audrey Williams June

Lori Whisenant knows that one way to improve the writing skills of undergraduates is to make them write more. But as each student in her course in business law and ethics at the University of Houston began to crank out—often awkwardly—nearly 5,000 words a semester, it became clear to her that what would really help them was consistent, detailed feedback.

Her seven teaching assistants, some of whom did not have much experience, couldn't deliver. Their workload was staggering: About 1,000 juniors and seniors enroll in the course each year. "Our graders were great," she says, "but they were not experts in providing feedback."

That shortcoming led Ms. Whisenant, director of business law and ethics studies at Houston, to a novel solution last fall. She outsourced assignment grading to a company whose employees are mostly in Asia.

Virtual-TA, a service of a company called EduMetry Inc., took over. The goal of the service is to relieve professors and teaching assistants of a traditional and sometimes tiresome task—and even, the company says, to do it better than TA's can.

The graders working for EduMetry, based in a Virginia suburb of Washington, are concentrated in India, Singapore, and Malaysia, along with some in the United States and elsewhere. They do their work online and communicate with professors via e-mail. The company advertises that its graders hold advanced degrees and can quickly turn around assignments with sophisticated commentary, because they are not juggling their own course work, too.

The company argues that professors freed from grading papers can spend more time teaching and doing research.

"We tend to drop the ball when it comes to giving rich feedback, and in the end this hurts the student," says Chandru Rajam, who has been a business professor at several universities. "I just thought, "'There's got to be a better way.'" He helped found the privately held EduMetry five years ago and remains on its management staff.

Whether Virtual-TA is that better way remains to be seen. Company officials would not say how many colleges use the service, but Mr. Rajam acknowledges that the concept of anonymous and offshore grading is often difficult for colleges to swallow.

Those that have signed up are a mix of for-profit and nonprofit institutions, many of them business schools, both in the United States and overseas. Professors and administrators say they have been won over by on-the-job performance. "This is what they do for a living," says Ms. Whisenant. "We're working with professionals."

Anonymous Expertise

Virtual-TA's tag line is "Your expert teaching assistants." These graders, also called assessors, have at least master's degrees, the company says, and must pass a writing test, since conveying their thoughts on assignments is an integral part of the job. The company declined to provide The Chronicle with names or degrees of assessors. Mr. Rajam says that the company's focus is on "the process, not the individual," and that professors and institutions have ample opportunity to test the assessors' performance during a trial period, "because the proof is in the pudding."

Assessors are trained in the use of rubrics, or systematic guidelines for evaluating student work, and before they are hired are given sample student assignments to see "how they perform on those," says Ravindra Singh Bangari, EduMetry's vice president of assessment services.

Mr. Bangari, who is based in Bangalore, India, oversees a group of assessors who work from their homes. He says his job is to see that the graders, many of them women with children who are eager to do part-time work, provide results that meet each client's standards and help students improve.

"Training goes on all the time," says Mr. Bangari, whose employees work mostly on assignments from business schools. "We are in constant communication with U.S. faculty."

Such communication, part of a multi-step process, begins early on. Before the work comes rolling in, the assessors receive the rubrics that professors provide, along with syllabi and textbooks. In some instances, the graders will assess a few initial assignments and return them for the professor's approval.

Sometimes professors want changes in the nature of the comments. Ms. Whisenant found those on her students' papers initially "way too formal," she says. "We wanted our feedback to be conversational and more direct. So we sent them examples of how we wanted it done, and they did it."

Professors give final grades to assignments, but the assessors score the papers based on the elements in the rubric and "help students understand where their strengths and weaknesses are," says Tara Sherman, vice president of client services at EduMetry. "Then the professors can give the students the help they need based on the feedback."

Mr. Bangari says that colleges use Virtual-TA's feedback differently, but that he has seen students' work improve the most when professors have returned assignments to students and asked them to redo the work to incorporate the feedback.

The assessors use technology that allows them to embed comments in each document; professors can review the results (and edit them if they choose) before passing assignments back to students. In addition, professors receive a summary of comments from each assignment, designed to show common "trouble spots" among students' answers, among other things. The assessors have no contact with students, and the assignments they grade are stripped of identifying information. Ms. Sherman says most papers are returned in three or four days, which can be key when it comes to how students learn. "You can reinforce certain ideas based on timely feedback," Mr. Rajam says. "Two or three weeks after an assignment is too long."

No Classroom Insight

Critics of outsourced grading, however, say the lack of a personal relationship is a problem.

"An outside grader has no insight into how classroom discussion may have played into what a student wrote in their paper," says Marilyn Valentino, chair of the board of the Conference on College Composition and Communication and a veteran professor of English at Lorain County Community College. "Are they able to say, 'Oh, I understand where that came from' or 'I understand why they thought that, because Mary said that in class'?"

Ms. Valentino also questions whether the money spent on outsourced graders could be better used to help pay for more classroom instructors.

Professors and on-site teaching assistants, she says, are better positioned to learn enough about individual students to adjust their tone to help each one get his or her ideas across on paper. "Sometimes kidding them works, sometimes being strict and straightforward works," Ms. Valentino says. "You have to figure out how to get in that student's mind and motivate them."

Some professors "could be tempted to not even read" the reports about how students responded to various parts of an assignment, she says, because when "someone else is taking care of the grading," that kind of information can become easier to ignore.

Terri Friel, dean of the business school at Roosevelt University, says such worries are common but overstated. In her former post as associate dean of administration at Butler University's business school, she hired EduMetry to help the business school gather assessment data it needed for accreditation — another service the company offers. But Ms. Friel believed that Virtual-TA would not appeal to professors there.

"Faculty have this opinion that grading is their job, ... but then they'll turn right around and give papers to graduate teaching assistants," Ms. Friel says. "What's the difference in grading work online and grading it online from India? India has become known as a very good place to get a good business education, and why not make use of that capability?"

Acceptance has been a little easier at West Hills Community College, in Coalinga, Calif., which turned to Virtual-TA to help some students in its online classes get more feedback than instructors for such classes have typically offered. The service is used for one section each of three online courses—criminal justice, sociology, and basic math. Instructors can use it for three to five assignments of their choice per student. Using Virtual-TA for every assignment would be too costly, says Susan Whitener, associate vice chancellor for educational planning. (The price varies by length and complexity, but Virtual-TA suggests to potential clients that each graded assignment will cost $12 per student. That means outsourcing the grading of six assignments for 20 students in a course would cost $1,440.)

But West Hills' investment, which it wouldn't disclose, has paid off in an unexpected way. The feedback from Virtual-TA seems to make the difference between a student's remaining in an online course and dropping out.

"We definitely have a cost-benefit ratio that's completely in our favor for us to do this," Ms. Whitener says.

Holly Suarez, an online instructor of sociology at West Hills, says retention in her class has improved since she first used Virtual-TA, two years ago, on weekly writing assignments. Before then, "I would probably lose half of my students," says Ms. Suarez, who typically teaches 50 students per class.

Because Virtual-TA provides detailed comments about grammar, organization, and other writing errors in the papers, students have a framework for improvement that some instructors may not be able to provide, she says.

And although Ms. Suarez initially was wary of Virtual-TA—"I thought I was being replaced"—she can now see its advantages, she says. "Students are getting expert advice on how to write better, and I get the chance to really focus on instruction."

At Houston, business majors are now exposed to Virtual-TA both as freshmen and as upperclassmen.

Steven P. Liparulo, associate director at the university's Writing Center, helped give Virtual-TA its entree when the center decided to stop grading writing samples from the nearly 2,000 students each year planning to major in business. The writing evaluation is used to determine if students need extra help. He saw Virtual-TA as a way for the center's tutors to concentrate on working one-on-one with students. "That's just a much better use of their time," he says.

EduMetry's Mr. Rajam hopes that more colleges will see these benefits.

"People need to get past thinking that grading must be done by the people who are teaching," says Mr. Rajam, who is director of assurance of learning at George Washington University's School of Business. "Sometimes people get so caught up in the mousetrap that they forget about the mouse."

Source

...Now, this may be because I go to a small liberal arts university where the largest class size is 40 students and the professors teach multiple classes and are able to get papers back in with adequate feedback, but seriously, what the hell. Even using TAs (if you help them out enough) at a larger university, you should be able to get adequate feedback on a paper to students. Also, speaking as someone who may be becoming a TA, I resent being outsourced to people in Bangladesh.

[Molly]

THEYTOOKYERJOB!

[Nicolette Opal]

I've heard about this happening, and I agree with you, Hannah: what the hell?

[Dread]

Can I outsource my own marking to these people?

[Stavros]

Polish leaders die in air crash

The Polish President, Army Chief, Central Bank Governor and scores of MP's and significant figures were aboard the flight. This is basically as though the Polish Air Force One crashed.

[Venneh]

On a twenty year old Soviet plane. In Russia.

...

Wow, that has to be one of the most horrible coincidences ever.

[KnightWing]

I've heard about this happening, and I agree with you, Hannah: what the hell?

I concur.

On a twenty year old Soviet plane. In Russia.

...

Wow, that has to be one of the most horrible coincidences ever.

I concur.

[Nicolette Opal]

In Soviet Russia, plane crashes you.

But seriously, their president was not fantastic. Though, still, it is a tragedy. And ironic, considering the purpose of the trip.

[SuaveStar]

COCHRAN Bleckley County High School senior Derrick Martin made history Saturday when he arrived at his high school prom on the arm of another boy.

He was the first in his hometown of Cochran and perhaps in Georgia to ask permission to take a same sex partner to prom and have his school allow it.

About 7:45 p.m., couples started to arrive at the high school in a line of stretch limos, a bus, a John Deere tractor and even carriage and buggy, and afterward walked through a crowd of parents and friends who snapped photos.

When Martin, 18, and his boyfriend Richard Goodman, also 18, stepped onto a makeshift red carpet and their names were announced, a few parents whispered but many in the crowd gave him a loud cheer. No one yelled out in protest.

I wonder if they realize what theyve done, said Arturro Beeche, a San Francisco professor who flew into Georgia on Friday and drove Martin and Goodman to the prom. Once it happens in small-town America, it will inspire so many, he said.

Security was tight with at least 15 officers stationed at the high school, and no one could enter the parking lot without a ticket.

Martin asked his school system for permission to take a same sex partner to prom earlier this school year.

At his high school, prom dates from outside counties must be approved in advance, so Martin went to his principal and asked. After discussion with the superintendent and school board, officials eventually granted permission, saying they had no policy in place against it. You dont have the right to say no, principal Michelle Masters said in a previous interview.

The move had been met with some conflict, such as talk of a separate prom.

A few weeks back, a small group of students held an opposition rally in front of the town courthouse to protest. Martins parents also kicked him out of his home after the publicity.

But a rally in support of Martin was also held in a Macon park and supporters have donated more than $5,000 for college this fall.

You have to do what you think is right, Martin said the Friday while he and Goodman picked up their matching black and white tuxedos. I was tired of being sneaky and hiding things.

Goodman, a senior at Tift County High, said a few same sex couples have messaged him saying they would now ask to attend their proms together.

Oh, and by the way were going to my prom May 8, Goodman said to a surprised Martin.

Source

[dc20willsave]

Isn't it going to be awesome in a few years when this stuff isn't even local news? There will probably always be some opposition but most people will just ask what the big deal is.

[Nicolette Opal]

I don't know if this is the right thread, but these two used to be on the morning news on Chicago's local FOX affiliate. So.

I think this is pretty deranged, but Mike will like it.

First, the e-mail:

If Mama ain't happy, aint nobody happy!

Show me a great relationship and I'll show you a trained man, and a woman who made it happen.

I want to prove to you that every man is trainable. No, this is not what you think; it's actually what men want-the secret to a fantasy relationship.

If you think your man is in need of some training, send emails, videos, secretly recorded conversations, whatever you want. I'm only going to take on the really tough ones, so don't hold back in your submissions.

Come on... this is a great FREE opportunity. Don't blow it! I can show you how to take your man from clueless to trained in a few easy steps.

Send your submissions to info@trainaman.com to be considered.

And of course keep checking the blog for my latest miraculous transformations.

http://www.trainaman.com/

Make Mama happy.

Marianne

Yes Mike, THE Marianne. As in Murciano.

Check out the site.

I kind of feel bad for Bob Sirott.

I have no idea how I ended up on the effing mailing list of hers, though. Must've got my address off the mass e-mails the Fiction department sends out to grad students (without using bcc).

[Stavros]

The assault on Nick Clegg prior to tonights debate has taken a nasty turn.

Daily Mail article accusing Clegg of saying we are worse than Nazis.

Guardian article it was based on

Read one, then the other. Tell me that everything Clegg said in his article wasn't true, cause I think he was dead-on. Its not enough to define national pride through hating the Germans, especially since its such a one-sided issue.

[MaxPower]

[Misplaced] national pride is such an easy weapon for politicians to use, people SHOULD respect Clegg for taking a stand on it, instead of using it to evoke fear and cheap heat. If anything though, hopefully it increases the viewer ship of the second debate, which should be a good thing.

[Venneh]

Arizona Enacts Stringent Law on Immigration

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

Published: April 23, 2010

PHOENIX — Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed the nation’s toughest bill on illegal immigration into law on Friday. Its aim is to identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants.

The move unleashed immediate protests and reignited the divisive battle over immigration reform nationally.

Even before she signed the bill at an afternoon news conference here, President Obama strongly criticized it.

Speaking at a naturalization ceremony for 24 active-duty service members in the Rose Garden, he called for a federal overhaul of immigration laws, which Congressional leaders signaled they were preparing to take up soon, to avoid “irresponsibility by others.”

The Arizona law, he added, threatened “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.”

The law, which proponents and critics alike said was the broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations, would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Opponents have called it an open invitation for harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status.

The political debate leading up to Ms. Brewer’s decision, and Mr. Obama’s criticism of the law — presidents very rarely weigh in on state legislation — underscored the power of the immigration debate in states along the Mexican border. It presaged the polarizing arguments that await the president and Congress as they take up the issue nationally.

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was worried about the rights of its citizens and relations with Arizona. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles said the authorities’ ability to demand documents was like “Nazism.”

As hundreds of demonstrators massed, mostly peacefully, at the capitol plaza, the governor, speaking at a state building a few miles away, said the law “represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix.”

The law was to take effect 90 days after the legislative session ends, meaning by August. Court challenges were expected immediately.

Hispanics, in particular, who were not long ago courted by the Republican Party as a swing voting bloc, railed against the law as a recipe for racial and ethnic profiling. “Governor Brewer caved to the radical fringe,” a statement by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said, predicting that the law would create “a spiral of pervasive fear, community distrust, increased crime and costly litigation, with nationwide repercussions.”

While police demands of documents are common on subways, highways and in public places in some countries, including France, Arizona is the first state to demand that immigrants meet federal requirements to carry identity documents legitimizing their presence on American soil.

Ms. Brewer acknowledged critics’ concerns, saying she would work to ensure that the police have proper training to carry out the law. But she sided with arguments by the law’s sponsors that it provides an indispensable tool for the police in a border state that is a leading magnet of illegal immigration. She said racial profiling would not be tolerated, adding, “We have to trust our law enforcement.”

Ms. Brewer and other elected leaders have come under intense political pressure here, made worse by the killing of a rancher in southern Arizona by a suspected smuggler a couple of weeks before the State Legislature voted on the bill. His death was invoked Thursday by Ms. Brewer herself, as she announced a plan urging the federal government to post National Guard troops at the border.

President George W. Bush had attempted comprehensive reform but failed when his own party split over the issue. Once again, Republicans facing primary challenges from the right, including Ms. Brewer and Senator John McCain, have come under tremendous pressure to support the Arizona law, known as SB 1070.

Mr. McCain, locked in a primary with a challenger campaigning on immigration, only came out in support of the law hours before the State Senate passed it Monday afternoon.

Governor Brewer, even after the Senate passed the bill, had been silent on whether she would sign it. Though she was widely expected to, given her primary challenge, she refused to state her position even at a dinner on Thursday for a Hispanic social service organization, Chicanos Por La Causa, where several audience members called out “Veto!”

Among other things, the Arizona measure is an extraordinary rebuke to former Gov. Janet Napolitano, who had vetoed similar legislation repeatedly as a Democratic governor of the state before being appointed Homeland Security secretary by Mr. Obama.

The law opens a deep fissure in Arizona, with a majority of the thousands of callers to the governor’s office urging her to reject it.

In the days leading up to Ms. Brewer’s decision, Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, a Democrat, called for a convention boycott of his state.

The bill, sponsored by Russell Pearce, a state senator and a firebrand on immigration issues, has several provisions.

It requires police officers, “when practicable,” to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and to verify their status with federal officials, unless doing so would hinder an investigation or emergency medical treatment.

It also makes it a state crime — a misdemeanor — to not carry immigration papers. In addition, it allows people to sue local government or agencies if they believe federal or state immigration law is not being enforced.

States across the country have proposed or enacted hundreds of bills addressing immigration since 2007, the last time a federal effort to reform immigration law collapsed. Last year, there were a record number of laws enacted (222) and resolutions (131) in 48 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The prospect of plunging into a national immigration debate is being increasingly talked about on Capitol Hill, spurred in part by recent statements by Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the majority leader, that he intends to bring legislation to the Senate floor after Memorial Day.

But while an immigration debate could help energize Hispanic voters and provide political benefits to embattled Democrats seeking re-election in November — like Mr. Reid — it could also energize conservative voters.

It could also take time from other Democratic priorities, including an energy measure that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has described as her flagship issue.

Mr. Reid declined Thursday to say that immigration would take precedence over an energy measure. But he called it an imperative: “The system is broken,” he said.

Ms. Pelosi and Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, have said that the House would be willing to take up immigration policy only if the Senate produces a bill first.

Source

...Well, not going to Arizona any time soon.

Because, of course, there is absolutely no way this will be abused whatsoever.

[KnightWing]

I support this decision. If people want so badly to protect immigrants' livelihood, then re-organize and streamline the legal immigration system; don't turn a blind eye to the people who undermine it.

[JackFetch]

It will be ruled unconstitutional before the year is up, and maybe before it even goes into effect. The problem is the legal residents that will get stopped everywhere they go. People see a Hispanic person speaking Spanish and assume they are illegal. Forcing every legal immigrant to carry their papers everywhere goes against the very reasons people want to come here in the first place. If this were about any other race besides Hispanic, it never would have been passed or even thought of.

[KnightWing]

Forcing every legal immigrant to carry their papers everywhere...

Ah, yeah, I missed that line the first time I read through the article. That's going too far.

[Missy]

Brother of 'The Dark Knight' director pleads guilty to jail escape plot

April 29, 2010

BY NATASHA KORECKI Federal Courts Reporter

The brother of “The Dark Knight,” director Christopher Nolan pleaded guilty Thursday to braiding 31 feet of rope from his jail bed sheets in a Batman-like plot to rappel his way out of a downtown high-rise federal jail.

Matthew Nolan, 41, formerly of the South Shore neighborhood, didn’t get far with his plans to escape from the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he was being held in a Costa Rican murder case.

“I do need tools, razors and sheets if you have them,” Nolan wrote in a note to a friend as he plotted the jailbreak.

Nolan admitted Thursday in federal court he dreamed up the escape plot — which included stashing a razor blade inside a bar of soap that he kept in his cell — while he awaited extradition to Costa Rica.

Nolan also pleaded guilty Thursday to an obstruction of justice scheme involving calling an unnamed female friend from jail and telling her to empty the contents of a safe in his residence.

The FBI got a warrant and by the time they arrived, it was empty, according to the plea agreement.

“So everything especially those, ah . . . the check . . . you should check three things, and those should go bye-bye,” Nolan said in a phone call captured by authorities. “As for the like the iron thing, and anything else . . . and ah like any plane tickets, bus tickets, whatever . . . they should go . . . somewhere safer, but more unusual . . . you know what I mean?”

Sources have said that upon his 2009 arrest for the Costa Rican case, Nolan was under investigation by Chicago Police in a $700,000 bank-fraud scheme.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Chmelar, Nolan wrote to a different unnamed individual with whom he plotted the MCC escape, using coded language that referred to plot as the “beach party,” and to money as “ice cream.”

“My thought was tape the window, crack, mount rope w/ rope sleeve and rope bag . . . rappel to street + friends . . . . Trigger man runs the op from parking garage,” Nolan wrote in a note to the unnamed person, according to his plea deal.

Costa Rican authorities have issued a warrant for Nolan in relation to the kidnapping and murder of Florida businessman Robert C. Cohen. Authorities say Matthew Nolan pretended he was interested in doing business in Costa Rica when he met Cohen in a hotel. He was really after Cohen to recover $7 million Cohen owed another Florida man, Costa Rican authorities said. An accomplice kidnapped Cohen and the men tried to extort the money from Cohen’s family; but when that failed, they killed Cohen, Costa Rican authorities said. Matthew Nolan’s alleged accomplice, Douglas Mejia, has been convicted.

Nolan faces one year to 18 months for the escape plot and obstruction of justice charges. He’s scheduled to be sentenced July 22 and would have to complete his sentence here before he’s extradited, prosecutors said.

Source

[Molly]

Awesome.

[Missy]

NYC mayor: Vehicle contained explosive device

By TOM HAYS and CRISTIAN SALAZAR, Associated Press Writers

NEW YORK – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says a suspicious vehicle in Times Square "did indeed contain an explosive device."

Police found the device in the smoking Nissan Pathfinder on Saturday evening. They then cleared the streets of tourists and dismantled it.

The mayor spoke at a news conference early Sunday along with Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Kelly says the car contained three propane tanks, consumer-grade fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components. He says a black metal box resembling a gun locker was also recovered.

Authorities say a Connecticut license plate on the vehicle did not match up. Police are looking for additional surveillance video.

Source

[Nicolette Opal]

For some reason, I thought they'd made Times Square a pedestrian-only plaza.

[Venneh]

Half and half when I was there in April; towards the Central Park and Broadway end of it, there's oneways that let taxis through. Otherwise, it's mostly pedestrian.

[JackFetch]

It is pedestrian only between certain streets, but Times Square is pretty big.

[Missy]

Early this morning the 7-Eleven that's two blocks from my apartment was robbed. No wonder I saw three cop cars in the parking lot when I tried to stop there for a bottle of water.

[Kscriv]

Meh, Sevs get knocked off all the time. The one I worked at got held up every other month. The one near my place got held up a couple weeks back.

Unless someone gets killed (rare, as Sev staff are taught to comply) it's really no big deal imo