AI in Practice
Heymans AI Tutor
Heymans is an AI tutor that educators can use to enhance the quality of their courses. Currently, the project focuses on two types of functionality:
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Reviewing open exam questions: This involves questions with clear answer keys that can be assessed unambiguously by AI. These are primarily questions testing factual knowledge, which are typically evaluated using multiple-choice exams. (Heymans is not used for grading essay questions that require a high degree of subjectivity.) Students receive a detailed report from Heymans explaining how their grade was determined. If they disagree with any part of the assessment, they can request a second opinion from the course coordinator.
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Formative assessment through dialogue: Heymans poses a question to the student based on a paragraph from the textbook (or other course material). The student attempts to answer, and Heymans provides feedback as needed. This functionality is primarily used as a supplement to regular exams or other assignments.
Heymans is open-source software developed by the University of Groningen itself. Its primary objective is to prevent the organisation from becoming too dependent on large technology companies. A second key objective is transparency: it must be clear to students and lecturers what Heymans does and why.
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A beta version of Heymans is available at https://heymansai.rug.nl (University of Groningen account required).
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The source code can be found at: https://github.com/rug-gmw/heymans.
SlimStampen
SlimStampen was developed based on the research of Prof Hedderik van Rijn's research group. This tool uses cognitive AI to analyse students' answers to knowledge questions by which it assesses on which topics the students' knowledge is sufficient and on which it is lacking. After using SlimStampen, the most efficient study schedule can be drafted for each individual student, which leads to an overall improvement of their understanding of the material of 10 to 20 percent (circa one point higher on a test graded with the Dutch system, or reducing a students' study time by one day).