Is it ethical to use AI grading tools like GradingPartner to grade essays?
Written by a human (because the best way to build a complete and meaningful understanding of a subject, is still to write about it).
First, if you believe that AI has no place in education, this will not change your mind.
But, if you spend a significant amount of time grading essays and find yourself somewhat conflicted about the ethics of leveraging an AI essay grading tool like GradingPartner to get through the stack, then this is for you.
The most common concern: the double standard
When I introduce GradingPartner the most frequent concern I hear is that it creates a double standard.
“How can we, in good faith, ask students not to write their papers with AI while using an AI to grade those same papers?”
This is a legitimate concern, and I appreciate the irony, but ultimately, it's a false equivalence. Writing an essay and grading an essay are two distinct acts each requiring its own ethical consideration.
Most instructors agree that writing an essay with AI is unacceptable. And while the point of this essay isn't to diagnose that issue, understanding why it is wrong helps clarify why the same rationale does not apply to grading. So bear with me (or just jump ahead) while I detour into an oversimplified argument on why writing an essay with AI is wrong.
A short detour: why writing essays with AI is problematic
A well written essay requires a thorough understanding of a topic, a critical application of concepts, and a unique voice. The act of putting thoughts to paper exposes gaps in knowledge, logic, and perspective and pushes the writer to be more complete and thoughtful. This struggle is where the learning happens. When a student uses AI to write a paper they rob themselves of this essential, and sometimes painful, act of learning. And this is why students shouldn't do it.
But it does get more complicated when we consider other, smaller ways that students might use AI. Is it unethical to:
- Use AI to format citations?
- Check grammar and spelling?
- Improve syntax?
- Brainstorm ideas?
- Generate an outline?
- Give feedback on a draft?
AI offers a full spectrum of essay support, and where they fall in the ethical debate hinges on whether or not they reduce the learning that the writing exercise was meant to produce. We don't need to have the entire debate here. Point is, students using AI to write essays is problematic because writing the essay is part of the learning process.
End detour.
Clearly, this logic does not apply to grading. Grading essays is not an act of learning for the instructor. The instructor should already understand the material, and the purpose of grading is to evaluate how well the student now understands the material. So, clearly, the ethical argument against students using AI to write essays does not transfer to grading.
The deeper concern
The loss of human judgment
However, this does poke at a deeper concern: the loss of human judgment. The purpose of grading is to evaluate how well the student understands the material, and one of the best windows into a student's understanding of the material is by grading their essays. If instructors delegate essay grading to AI, are instructors robbing them of a proper evaluation? This loss of human judgment concern usually manifests in 5 categories.
1. Accuracy: How can I trust that GradingPartner is making sound evaluations?
GradingPartner evaluates essays based on the instructor's rubric and calibrates according to the instructor's strictness (coming soon). This structure encourages consistent, methodical, and unbiased evaluations rather than subjective impressions. However, instructors should always review outputs and make adjustments before posting final grades. GradingPartner is a tool designed to assist in the process of grading essays, not blindly replace judgment.
2. Pedagogy: How will I understand where my students are struggling?
GradingPartner's teaching insights (coming soon) can help recognize patterns across essays, highlight areas where students consistently struggle, and inform future lessons.
3. Professional Responsibility: Who is responsible if a student disputes their grade?
The instructor remains responsible for all grades and feedback. GradingPartner makes suggestions and all outputs should be treated as recommendations.
4. Financial: Students are paying good money for my feedback, not AI's.
Students are paying good money for an education, not for instructors to spend hours working through the essay stack. The real question is how can an instructor's time best be used. It can be spent grading essays, or it can be spent preparing lessons, meeting with students, and engaging with the latest material. GradingPartner is built on the belief that shifting effort away from grading towards more direct engagement with the material and the student will drive better learning outcomes.
5. Emotional: If a student worked hard on an essay, don't we owe it to them to read it?
First, instructors should still skim essays to ensure grading accuracy. Second, as we established above, the value of essay writing is in the learning that occurs during the writing process. Even professional authors write far more unread text than read. Writing is first and foremost for the writer.
So, the loss of human judgment is rightfully a concern, and it exposes ways a tool like this can be used problematically. My view is simple: if you are using GradingPartner to replace your judgment, you are probably using it unethically. If you are using it to support you judgment, to be more efficient, accurate, and consistent, then you are using it ethically.
Best practices using GradingPartner
1. Use a clear rubric
A detailed rubric guides scoring and feedback
2. Calibrate to your standards (coming soon)
Calibration ensures strictness aligns with your expectations
3. Skim the student's essay
Verify that feedback matches the work
4. Adjust grades or feedback before returning to the student
The instructor always has the final say
The goal
GradingPartner was not built to replace human judgment. It was built to help educators spend less time grading and more time teaching.
And, when used correctly, GradingPartner is not just ethically permissible. There are real benefits to leveraging a tool like grading partner:
1. Consistency: Human grading is often inconsistent across time and influence by fatigue, mood, and bias.
A rubric aligned system like GradingPartner applied consistently reduces this variability.
2. Bias reduction: Consciously or not, human grading is influenced by writing style, tone, perceived effort, and even student identity ques.
Human judgment is valuable, but not always objective. Unintended bias can be reduced by a tool like GradingPartner, which aligns grading factors with the rubric.
3. Efficiency: Faster grading isn't just good for your weekend.
It also means quicker feedback loops, more writing assignments, and ultimately better learning outcomes.
Generative LLMs are a new frontier, but technology reshaping the norms of writing and reading in not new. Even the typewriter was met with initial resistance, with some arguing that it implied the recipient couldn't read handwriting. And in our own lifetimes we've seen tools like the word processor, spelling and grammar checks, plagiarism and AI detectors, and many others become not just common, but encouraged despite pockets of initial resistance. Tools like GradingPartner are an extension of this trajectory, and the question is not whether they will change how we evaluate writing. They will. The question is how intentionally we will use them.