Feedback Aide Agents are bundles of functionality that allow you to flexibly customize the engine to your use case. The use of an agent incurs additional credits, but all features in that agent are included.
Moderation Agent
Available for essay and short response, the Moderation Agent is helpful for identifying sensitive, inappropriate, or concerning content. See Content Moderation with Feedback Aide for more detail.
See developer documentation evaluation options - moderation.
Content & Structure Agent
Available for essays only, the Content & Structure Agent performs a series of checks to ensure that submissions meet basic requirements and that those which do not are handled appropriately. These checks support fairness, scoring accuracy, and consistency at scale.
Topic Check
Verifies whether the essay is relevant to the question. You can specify the 'level' of relevancy to change the strictness of this check. Essays that fall below the required level of topical relevance are flagged as off-topic.
See developer documentation evaluation options - topic_check.
Structure Check
Confirms the essay meets minimum structural expectations. You can specify the number of expected paragraphs and the minimum expected length of those paragraphs. Responses not meeting the minimum expectations will be flagged.
See developer documentation evaluation options - structure_check.
Language Check
Verifies whether an essay is in the expected language. Useful for language learning, you can specify the expected language of the learner response. Responses in any other language will be flagged.
See developer documentation evaluation options - language_check.
Citation Check
Checks whether the essay includes the required number of in-text citations and/or entries in the bibliography. Useful for evidence-based writing tasks, essays missing required citations are flagged.
See developer documentation evaluation options - citation_check.
What happens when an essay doesn't pass a check?
When an essay fails a check, it is flagged as 'Not scorable.' In the Feedback Aide UI, the 'Not scorable' checkbox will be checked, the rubric will be left empty, and the reason for the failed flag will be in the feedback box. Developers can access these flags on the background for further downstream processing as desired.
Screenshot 1: Feedback Aide UI for a not scorable essay
Explainability Agent
Available for essay only, the Explainability Agent provides assistance to the grader by helping better interpret the learner's response and the suggested score. All features in this agent are designed to be grader-facing.
Justification
Justification provides graders and reviewers with a short explanation of why Feedback Aide assigned each score. Unlike learner-facing feedback, this justification text is intended specifically for internal scoring workflows. It helps reviewers quickly understand the Feedback Aide engine’s reasoning so they can confidently approve or adjust the score.
Screenshot 2: Feedback Aide UI for score justification option
For analytic rubrics, justification is provided for each rubric trait. For holistic rubrics, there's a single overall justification. Justification text can appear alongside the score during grading and review, depending on your needs.
Screenshot 3: Justification for score for analytic rubric
See developer documentation evaluation options - justification_of_score.
Grader-Assist Annotations
What Are Annotations?
Annotations are AI-generated highlights that call attention to specific, common elements of a learner's response. They are designed to help graders work more efficiently by reducing the time spent scanning for key elements in essays.
When enabled, annotations overlay on top of the learner’s response. A color-coded legend appears on the page, and hovering over any highlight provides a short explanation of the element identified.
Screenshot 4: Feedback Aide displaying different types of annotations
Why Use Annotations?
They offer two major benefits:
- Faster grading: Graders can immediately locate the thesis, check for relevant evidence, and confirm citations without reading the entire response or scrolling between sections of the essay.
- Better explainability: Annotations give graders insight into why the Feedback Aide engine suggested the given score.
Types of Annotations
Three types of annotations are currently supported:
1. Thesis / Claim / Main Idea
Highlights the single sentence that states the central claim or main idea of the response.
- The highlighted sentence is the one the rest of the essay is expected to support.
- Only one sentence will be highlighted.
- If no clear thesis exists, nothing is highlighted.
- If the student makes a claim unrelated to the prompt, it will be highlighted and noted.
Screenshot 5: Annotations descrbing thesis of the essay
See developer documentation evaluation options - annotation_grader_thesis.
2. Supporting Evidence
Highlights the core pieces of evidence used to support the thesis. This includes:
- Facts or statistics
- Anecdotes or quotes from authoritative voices
- Textual quotes
- Cases or examples
Feedback Aide highlights only the evidence itself, not the surrounding analysis, and filters out irrelevant or off-topic details.
Screenshot 6: Annotations highlighting supporting evidence for the thesis of the essay
See developer documentation evaluation options - annotation_grader_evidence.
3. Citations
Highlights any in-text citations and connects them to their corresponding bibliography entries. Hovering over the citation reveals the linked reference (when one exists).
Screenshot 7: Annotations highlighting citations
See developer documentation evaluation options - annotation_grader_citations.
What if the annotation is wrong?
In the occasional case where the highlighted text is incorrect, you can delete the annotation. When you delete, you’ll be asked whether the annotation was incorrect.
What are unformatted annotations?
In rare cases where the response cannot be highlighted a fallback section—Unformatted annotations—appears at the bottom of the page. This section lists the annotations as plain text so you can still use them during grading.