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Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgement is made to former colleagues Scott Hale and Shannon Proctor for the idea of using a template of discrete rating categories by which to judge speaking behaviors. Dean George Arasimowicz provided course release time to start this project. Computer specialist Brain Hurley programmed WebGrader from initial design to current template with the enthusiastic permission of Gary Larson in Institutional Research. Significant technological help was given by Beth Johanson, David Kletzing, Bruce Knowlton, and J.R. Smith in Media Resources, and web designer Les Barker in Marketing Communications. Trey Buchanan in the Psychology Department provided statistical expertise. Joe Mazer of Ohio University was an early reader who provided helpful feedback. A final thanks goes to my teaching assistant, Jonathan Harrell, who took on three revisions of WebGrader.
Notes
1. WebGrader was originally scored on a three-point scale (1=incompetent, 2=satisfactory/competent, 3=highly competent) to produce a 45-point scale similar to The Competent Speaker. The initial use of a three-point grading system was technologically rather than pedagogically driven, since the computer template available at that time could not easily illustrate 45 discrete categories on one screen. Since determining performance on a three-point scale was limiting and frustrating to both students and faculty, a change was made when technology enabled the 2007 revision of WebGrader to move from a three-point to a five-point grading scale. With up to 15 categories that can be scored from “1” to “5,” a student could now receive a total of 75 points for each graded speech performance.