A article in the Chronicle of Higher Education surprised me this morning. A business law and ethic studies professor at the University of Houston is outsourcing the grading of her papers.
The professor has seven teaching assistants which grades 1,000 juniors' and seniors' papers. Her justification was that the graders are not experts in providing feedback.
The UH professor followed a trend in businesses today to outsource services to save money. Even our business has seen certain services outsourced to other areas to help with budgetary needs.
But grading papers? Afterall, students can't outsource their homework.
So today, I asked a couple of professors at Centenary, since I was out there doing a story, what they thought about outsourcing their grading.
Robert Prickett, assistant professor of education, said he would never outsource his grading.
"My job is to facilitate learning and one way to do it is seeing how many missed a question or how they answered."
He called outsourcing "problematic".
Down the hall I found Amy Hammond, assistant professor of psychology who agreed with Prickett. She said that grading is the least fun part about being a professor but it's absolutely necessary. She understood the motivation to outsource the work and often sets aside whole blocks of time to grade papers.
"Would love help grading but I would not do it," she said about outsourcing her grading. "I would like to know the training and experience of the person grading."
Tell us what you think by taking the poll in the column to the right.
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