Google grant for Sydney Uni's student writing coach software

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 07 December 2010 11:24

IT Industry - Strategy

Google is providing financial support for a University of Sydney project designed to improve students' writing skills.

The School of Electrical and Information Engineering at the University of Sydney has been developing software to provide students with real-time feedback as they write essays.

Called iWrite, the software uses Google Docs' web-based word processing capability for individual and collaborative writing projects. But it goes further by providing authors with feedback to help ensure documents reflect their intent, are coherent, and stick to the topic under discussion.

According to Associate Professor Rafael Calvo, the use of Google's servers "[saves] millions in the infrastructure costs of running the tools, keeping backups and so on,"

Further improvements to iWrite will be possible thanks to a grant of an unspecified amount from Google.

Associate Professor Calvo and his team plan to using the funding to investigate the effective use of humour when providing feedback.

How might that be done? See page 2.