Application of Artificial Intelligence to the Small Open Online English Abstract Writing Course

Abstract

This project explores the small open online course (SMOOC) and the artificial intelligence (AI) assisted writing, grading and feedback system Quick Research Papers (QRP) that overcomes the traditional teaching method’s problems and limitations of class size, space, time, and number of exercises, in order to enhance graduate students’ English abstract writing skill. We apply SMOOC and QRP to teach 79 graduate students for abstract writing and track their writing errors in order to pinpoint their writing weaknesses so as to provide better teaching consultation. The results show that only 68 students followed through the second stage of writing the assignment. Total of 12,916 words were written by these 68 students, resulting in total errors of 501; top ten errors are noun, spelling, subject-verb agreement, writing style, common style error, formal writing error, long sentence, incomplete sentence, punctuation, object of verb, respectively. These research findings provide a good clue on how to guide and coach students as a class to enhance their abstract writing skill. Through AI analytics, individual student’s weakness can also be identified, leading to more effective individual consultation.