Automated Feedback, an artificial intelligence tool developed by Feedback Fruits in collaboration with EUR and Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, has been awarded with a silver award during the Reimagine Education Awards 2021Opens external. These international “Oscars” for higher education, organized by the Wharton School and QS Quacquarelli Symonds, reward initiatives that improve learning outcomes and student employability, fundamentally renewing the educational landscape.
Out of more than 1,100 submissions from around the world, Feedback Fruits’ Automated Feedback was awarded second prize in the Artificial Intelligence category. The development of this tool was co-financed by the Community for Learning and Innovation, which stimulates and facilitates educational innovation within EUR.
Automated Feedback is a tool that provides students with automated feedback on their academic writing skills. By checking, for example, spelling and form errors via this tool, the teacher has more time to focus on substantive feedback. Students thus gain direct insight into the quality of their work while writing, and can make improvements and learn from them without the intervention of the teacher. The Feedback Fruits e-learning Tool Suite is already widely used by EUR lecturers. However, this does not yet apply to the Automated Feedback tool, which is used by several dozen teachers. The aim is to also stimulate this application within the various faculties of the EUR.
Wilco te Winkel, information manager at EUR and contact person for this project, is very enthusiastic: “Artificial intelligence is still unknown to many people in education, but tools such as Automated Feedback really contribute to improving education. It can also contribute to reducing the workload, a priority of many vice deans of education at EUR. This tool is already very nice and is now internationally recognized, but it is just the beginning. I see it as a stepping stone to a much larger ambition: the use of automated feedback for all written products, including the theses, supplemented with peer feedback and teacher feedback. This allows us to really support students as much as possible in their learning process.”
FeedbackFruits is a Dutch ed-tech company that focuses on co-creation of evidence-based educational technology. The organization now works with more than 100 higher education institutions around the world, including Erasmus University Rotterdam, TU Delft, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Cornell University, Texas Tech University, Monash University, and Central Michigan University.