About Writemark

It all began with a simple realisation: marking English papers was draining time and energy from teachers everywhere.

While supplying our data ingestion and analysis platform, elastik, our team were dropping into schools across Australia as part of our customer care process. Back then, we weren’t focussing any efforts on supporting teachers with their marking, yet every time we dropped in, ‘time spent marking’ was a consistent conversation topic.

Those late nights sat at the kitchen table or watching the sunset by our desk at school were distant memories for us as former teachers, but we were increasingly empathetic to the teachers we were speaking to.

The moment the penny dropped

Eventually, we acted on instinct and began to help where we could but the best we could do was inherit the burden. Our regional team members were driving out to our schools, collecting exam scripts and shipping them back to the office for marking.

We quickly realised that we weren’t solving the problem, and our method was just as time-consuming. We also encountered another problem.

It wasn't just the workload that concerned us; it was the realisation that our subjective biases could inadvertently influence grading. Yes, we were marking to a rubric/mark scheme, but some elements of this rubric were open to interpretation. This is great if the same person is marking every script, but were marking hundreds of scripts for several schools... you can see why we were so concerned.

The service we offered meant schools would obtain their writing results with a detailed analysis within 30 days.

Travelling between schools
Collecting exam papers
Shipped back to the office for marking
30

Results with a detailed analysis within 30 days

We couldn’t help but think...

How many instructional opportunities, between student and teacher, were missed during the time of marking and feeding back? Not just in our process, but for every teacher who spends their DOTT marking, or takes writing samples home to review in their own time.

Our solution was a very clunky, time-consuming plaster over the ever-widening crack of assessment marking. We needed a solution that solved geographical challenges, but also a solution that kept marking and feedback consistent, for every student and was delivered in as timely fashion as possible. Instant feedback, marked to the highest degree of accuracy became the goal.

We'll be honest, it wasn’t a quick fix. We had trial and error after trial and error. Back then, 'Al' was not our first thought. Artificial intelligence was still, for the most part, a fictional faceless villain from your favourite Arnold Schwarzenegger or Will Smith film.

We spent years refining, researching, coding, and working behind the scenes. Members of our team spent hours, into days, into weeks, collecting data from writing experts and schools worldwide to hone their development of a language model or a system that could automate elements of the marking process.

Using artificial intelligence as part of the Writemark service was the key to success.

The eureka moment

An opportunity to work with Faculty AI. With the right integration and the right idea, we knew artificial intelligence was the missing piece of the puzzle.

We set out to create an automated marker capable of emulating the expertise of a writing expert, free from biases, and equipped to provide insightful teacher comments...in real-time. After years of refinement, our product ‘real-time writing’ emerged as the closest contender to our ground-breaking solution we had wanted.

A thriving partnership with Faculty has allowed our elastik team to develop and optimise the latest iteration of real-time writing, Writemark.

Has it worked? We’d like to think so

87,000+

student writing responses marked in 2024, so far.
3

pilot projects with some of the largest exam boards in the UK.
23,000

educators with access to Writemark, worldwide.
650+

schools globally accessing the elastik portfolio.

We're immensely proud of how far Writemark.ai has come. We're also immensely proud of the individuals, schools and teachers who remained determined to get it right.

2015

Travelling between schools collecting papers for marking. Results within 30 days.

2019

First model trained with artifiial intelligence tech named 'Real-time Writing'.

2022

Partenrship with FacultyAI to develop a State of the Art model, 'Writemark' and bring it into production

2023

Writemark is now used by almost 23,000 educators and teachers, worldwide.

2024

Several Australian curriculum rubrics developed in-platform. Writemark 2.0 is launched. Pilot projects and global exam board trials commence for Writemark.ai in the UK.

Have we finished?

Not even close.

Writemark is revolutionising the marking and feedback space but there is a long way to go. From its humble beginnings to where it is today, the Writemark platform has been curated, tested and optimised in such a way that it is truly a personal and reliable highly intelligent teacher co-pilot.

At every stage of development, teachers, educators, and students have been involved in the optimisation process to keep our mission at the forefront of our portfolio. Improving outcomes. Improving wellbeing. Less overtime, more teaching time.

Interested in our impact reports?

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