SEATTLE, April 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Applexus Technologies, a full-service business and technology solutions company based in the Seattle area, announced the launch of a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) practice to provide AI software and services to clients. The newly launched team is part of Applexus Product and Innovation. The new practice supports a wide variety of AI services and solutions, through custom and packaged solutions, using emerging technologies such as deep learning, machine learning and big data analysis. The Applexus Chief Technologist and AI practice leader is Dr. Thomas Koickal, one of the longest-serving global practitioners of machine learning based technologies. His career of more than 20 years has included work at the University of Edinburgh, UK and Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, a research center of the Indian Space Research Organization.

After a recent study that suggested automated essay graders are as effective as their human counterparts in judging essay exams, "roboreaders" are receiving a new wave of publicity surrounding their possible inclusion in assessments and classrooms. But while developers of the technology are happy to have the attention, they insist the high profile has more to do with timing of policy changes such as the push to common standards than with any dramatic evolution in the essay-grading tools themselves. "What's changed is the claims people are willing to make about it. "I think, over time, a mixture of technologies will make this really good not only for scoring essays," but also for other assignments, said Mr. Cohen, the director of AIR's assessment program. "But we really need to be clear about the limits of the applications we are using today so we can get there." The study, underwritten by the Menlo Park, Calif.-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is driven by the push to improve assessments related to the shift to the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts and math, and is based on the examination of essays written specifically for assessments.