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In an effort to save countless hours that would be spent reading essays and grading papers for large undergraduate classes, a professor at the University of Missouri has developed a computer program to perform the work electronically.

The cost-saving program, called Qualrus, was developed over six years by sociology Professor Edward Brent as a way to analyze large amounts of unstructured data.

By analyzing sentence structure and searching for key words in an essay, Qualrus assigns a numerical grade to papers based on the weight professors give to certain aspects of an assignment.

By looking at sentence and paragraph structure, the program can accurately determine the flow of ideas in an essay, Brent said.

Currently, Brent uses the program to grade rough drafts of his assignments. Students submit papers to the program online and receive nearly instantaneous feedback and corrections. They are then able to resubmit papers an unlimited number of times.

Because the program searches for key words, it is possible for students to find loopholes in the system, Brent said. However, he added that because final drafts are graded by himself or teaching assistants, students who find loopholes in the system and ignore the program’s advice only hurt themselves.

Amid recent budget cuts to public universities around the country, Brent said he helped to develop the program out of necessity.

“I have a large introductory class, and we have so many students that we couldn’t afford to have enough TAs,” Brent said.

Brent gave students the option of taking a multiple choice exam that can be graded electronically or having their essays graded by Qualrus. His class chose Qualrus.

Some professors at UCLA are against using software to grade student work, even with large introductory courses similar to those offered at the University of Missouri.

Assistant history Professor Kelly Lytle Hernandez, who teaches a course of 240 students and has several readers to grade exams, said she would not consider using such a program at the present time and does not believe using computers to grade papers would be very beneficial to students.

Second-year sociology student David Lin agreed.

“I’d rather have TAs grade my paper because they are subjective. ... A computer would just be objective and would only check for this or that,” he said. But Lin added that he would support using such a program for rough drafts because it “could check for all the things you need in the paper.”

According to Brent, some students in his classes have had objections to use of the program, but he said having humans grade the final drafts addresses those concerns.

Qualrus is also used by businesses to make sense of massive amounts of data. The program has been approved for use at the University of Missouri and is available to other schools for $399 and to businesses for $699 a copy.