Turnitin today announced the company has reached a definitive agreement to acquire LightSide Labs, an online service that uses machine learning to provide real-time feedback on student writing.
The agreement will allow Turnitin to integrate its originality checking and online grading features with LightSide Labs’ approach to providing feedback to students across the writing process.
LightSide Labs’ technology uses machine learning to understand how instructors grade responses to writing prompts, and then provides automated feedback on-demand for students, suggesting revisions, providing both positive and constructive feedback directly in-line in student essays. The service suggests scores to the teacher, who can then review student work and assign grades based on each student’s full revision history.
