The Criterion® Online Writing Evaluation service is a web-based, instructor-led writing tool that helps students plan, write and revise their essays. It gives students immediate diagnostic feedback and opportunities to practice writing at their own pace. This service offers instructors and administrators at schools, universities and learning institutions a comprehensive writing solution to help improve student results by freeing up valuable classroom time for practicing higher level writing skills and working on areas of improvement.

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Criterion® helps you benchmark writing, track progress, make language level placement decisions and guide instruction.

Testimonial

My relevance in the classroom has been enhanced through the use of the ETS Criterion programme for today I am more of a "coach". The conversations with my students, which were once focused on "errors" are now focused on "expectations".

Richard, Assistant Principal, Benito Juarez Academy (Chicago)

Testimonial

My relevance in the classroom has been enhanced through the use of the ETS Criterion programme for today I am more of a "coach". The conversations with my students, which were once focused on "errors" are now focused on "expectations".

Richard, Assistant Principal, Benito Juarez Academy (Chicago)

Testimonial

My relevance in the classroom has been enhanced through the use of the ETS Criterion programme for today I am more of a "coach". The conversations with my students, which were once focused on "errors" are now focused on "expectations".

Richard, Assistant Principal, Benito Juarez Academy (Chicago)

In addition to giving administrators data that allows them to make important decisions, Criterion® helps instructors focus on higher-level writing skills while providing students with practice and direct feedbacks.

Thanks to Criterion in-depth reports that complement their student management systems, instructors can easily monitor district, school, and classroom writing performance. Criterion can help instructors benchmark students’ writing, track progress, make language level placement decisions, and tailor their lessons. Administrators can use the Criterion service to measure student progress and determine necessary programme improvements.

Moreover, to help improve classroom efficiency, this tool provides instructors with online, real-time access to instructor-specific writing assignments. The variety of topics readily available helps instructors save time grading papers allowing them to fully concentrate on the content and style of their students’ work. Criterion has customisable reports, which allow instructors to review student progress and highlight areas of improvement.

The Criterion Online Writing Evaluation Service also provides students with unlimited opportunities to practice and improve their writing, which can help them achieve higher test scores. Criterion offers instant feedback and scores so students can improve their skills with confidence.

The patented e-rater® scoring engine, developed by ETS, provides both annotated diagnostic feedback and holistic scoring using level-specific models based on essays pre-scored by ETS-trained readers. This engine provides diagnostic feedback for five key categories: grammar, usage, mechanics, style, and organisation & development.

Students can use these evaluations to revision as they re-write their essay submissions. The computer-generated holistic score is aligned to each grade/level based on models built from essays previously scored by human readers. The holistic score reflects the overall quality of the writing. It is a single numerical score given to the essay. Scores range from 1 to 6 or 1 to 4.

The e-rater® scoring engine provides holistic scores that are in close agreement with human scorers. While it supports all stages of student writing, this tool does not grade essay content and cannot replace teacher instructions and feedback.  Instead, it provides supplemental feedback to help improve writing skills. With it, teachers can save time and enhance their classroom instruction.

Test information

  • A library of more than 440 essay subjects
  • Creation of customised topics by the teacher
  • Diagnosis in grammar, spelling, language functioning, use, style, organisation and development
  • Opportunities for interactions between teacher and student
  • Adapted to programmes at all levels
  • Online training and individual customer support

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