Essaybot

Essaybot is D'Amore-McKim's AI-powered grading assistant, developed under DASH and built on the high-performance, GPU-powered DASH_Box. With supercharged RAM and a GPU, the system allows faculty to build, test, and refine grading models securely and at scale—right from their own offices, no cloud complexity required.

Designed to save time and enhance consistency, Essaybot helps instructors streamline the grading process for written assessments. In early pilot studies, faculty have seen grading time drop by as much as 60%, with the potential to reach 80% efficiency in fully optimized workflows. Once set up, Essaybot can process assignments quickly and consistently—free from the fatigue, bias, or variability that naturally affect human graders over time.

Will AI automation reduce my empathy for students over time? If grading becomes purely mechanical, will I spend less time deeply considering student struggles? Perhaps this will free me to engage with students in more meaningful ways, such as mentoring and preparing them for co-op interviews.

Martin Dias, Associate Teaching Professor, Supply Chain & Information Management

But speed isn't the only advantage. Essaybot helps preserve and amplify the human side of teaching. It enables more frequent feedback cycles, gives instructors a clear baseline to work from, and frees up time to focus on mentoring and meaningful engagement. And because Essaybot-generated feedback can be edited and refined, faculty remain in full control of tone and pedagogical intent.

Essaybot doesn't replace faculty judgment—it strengthens it. By pairing AI's speed and scalability with instructor oversight, it supports a future of more personalized, data-driven education. Faculty experimenting with the tool have already started imagining new models for adaptive feedback, customized to students' majors, co-op experiences, or learning preferences.

As more D'Amore-McKim faculty explore Essaybot in the classroom, it's becoming clear: grading doesn't have to be a bottleneck. With the right tools, it can be a gateway to better learning.

Powered by DASH_Box

Essaybot was built with DASH_Box, D'Amore-McKim's high-performance computing resource for advanced machine learning, deep learning, and data intensive applications. ‘The Box' provides on-demand computational capability, featuring:

  • PROCESSOR: AMD Ryzen 7950X (16 cores, 32 threads)
  • MEMORY: 128GB DDR5 Ripjaws RAM for high-speed data processing
  • GPU: NVIDIA RTX A6000 with 48GB VRAM, 10752 CUDA cores, and 336 Tensor cores for accelerated AI workloads

This desktop machine balances raw processing power with maximum flexibility, making it ideal for researchers working with large-scale neural networks, LLM inference, and AI modeling.

Want to dive in?

D'Amore-McKim faculty with an interest in using DASH_Box or Essaybot should contact us for details.

Kwong Chan