BBC Online

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As GCSE students pick up their results this week, they may like to spare a thought for the examiners who devoted thousands of hours to marking their answer booklets. But in future, computers could help them reclaim their summer holidays.

Professor Sargur Srihari’s research team at the University at Buffalo, New York, is developing software to fully automate the essay-marking process. “Trying to analyse children’s handwriting is a completely unexplored domain,” says Professor Srihari.

Exam scripts are scanned into the computer, the software reads the handwriting and translates it into computer type, and then grades the response as an examiner would, Professor Srihari explains. Read more…