Photo: Screenshot of the Virtual-T.A. Web site
Outsourcing is not a new concept for college students. Your t-shirt sports a “Made in Malaysia” tag; your iPod was produced in a plant in China; your question was answered by a call center in India. But the grade on your term paper? Yep, there’s a new trend in higher education—“Virtual-T.A.”
In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, one professor at the University of Houston explains why she turned to Virtual-T.A., a service of a company called EduMetry Inc.,: Her seven teaching assistants were overwhelmed with their grading workload. (We see an easy solution here: assign fewer papers.) And while the professor determined the final grade on the assignments, reviewers in India, Malaysia, and Singapore were in charge of providing feedback.
We know Northwestern prides itself on its 7:1 student-to-faculty ratio (though really, when was the last time you had such a small class?), significantly lower than the 22:1 ratio found at the University of Houston. Still, if this trend catches on, one day you may produce a paper in Evanston that is graded literally half a world away.
Some Papers Are Uploaded to Bangalore to Be Graded [The Chronicle of Higher Education]
