AI-Assisted Grading with Internet Search Capabilities!

These days a lot of assignments require students to include citations or sources, embedded as in-line citations or as a works cited page, to support student arguments. They are also commonly found in literature tables as preparation for a larger research report.

An overwhelming majority of assignments on TimelyGrader, particularly those in business courses, require citations. The problem is it takes so much time for instructors to review those sources, but they are key to grade and provide relevant feedback. The same goes for teaching assistants and any AI tools assisting the grading process. We are putting internet search capabilities into TimelyGrader on Wednesday.

If the assignment requires students to include sources to back up their arguments or if it is a key component of the assignment, TG will individually access sources and review the content of those sources.

Let’s run through a quick example:

Say this student used an article from the UN about AI in education (https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/01/1159381) amongst many others.

TimelyGrader will see that the student has included links in the submission and will try to understand what type of content exists inside the link.

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1. Who wrote it? The piece is produced by the UN News Service. Like many UN articles, it is written by UN correspondents or staff reporters rather than by a single named author. This format is common for UN communications…

2. What is it about? The article is centered on the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI). It discusses several key points…

3. What is the tone and setting? The tone is urgent and authoritative, balancing a cautionary note with a call to proactive global engagement. Phrases like “the window for action is rapidly closing”….

4. What is the implication to the student submission? If a student is incorporating this article into their submission—whether for a research paper, policy analysis, or another academic exercise—there are several key implications to…

These are the types of questions that we will try to get answers for to understand the content of the article and the context in which it is written. This is necessary to provide better feedback and improve the accuracy of grading (when applicable). One limitation will be content locked behind a paywall which is hidden from the search and will also pose a limitation to instructors alike.

Another potential use case might be for academic integrity as it is still common for GenAI tools to hallucinate article content and links may be broken if the students copy and paste without any review. Our platform will highlight that if they are a core component of the assignment and may deduct points if works cited are a criteria item.

On a side note…

Another friendly reminder to all users: If you would like a free upgrade to our Legacy account so you can continue to use TimelyGrader for free with all its capabilities, remember to fill out the survey (https://forms.gle/He4x8gKDW8xZFU9C9) to request the upgrade!

If you’ve already filled it out, we will be sending success emails later this week.