Can essays be assessed with CAA?

Computerized assessment of free text responses is an active research area, with some of the most advanced developments emerging from the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, New Jersey. Current work focuses on principles of computational linguistics and considers aspects of content and argument to arrive at a score.

For some of the latest research in the area, see the following papers on automated essay scoring (1996 - 1999). These papers describe the work of the Natural Language Processing Group at the ETS.