Glossary is usually defined as an alphabetical list of technical terms in some specialized field of knowledge. This knowledge base glossary provides a collection of knowledge base documents that define many technical terms. These terms are arranged alphabetically, but you can quickly jump to a specific term by selecting its first letter from the index of the knowledge base glossary below.

Automated Essay Scoring refers to the process whereby a computer is used to score or assist in scoring text-based responses to open-ended, constructed response questions. In short, the Automated Essay Scoring Engine is used as a surrogate or complement to human judgment. Automated essay scoring traces its roots back to the 1960’s, with Ellis Paige’s early work on Project Essay Grade (PEG). With the growth of personal computing, the 1990’s saw a rebirth in interest in this area with the introduction of the IntelliMetric™ scoring engine in 1998 and the release of several alternatives to the IntelliMetric™ model later that year. Automated essay scoring is now widely used in both classroom and large-scale evaluation of student work.

A firewall is a system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. http://www.howstuffworks.com/firewall.htm

IntelliMetric® is an intelligent scoring system that relies on artificial intelligence to emulate the process carried out by human scorers. IntelliMetric was first made available to educators by Vantage Learning(www.vantagelearning.com) in January 1998 after nearly a decade of research. The system must be “trained” with a set of previously scored responses containing “known score” marker papers for each score point. These papers are used as a basis for the system to infer the rubric and the pooled judgments of the human scorers. The IntelliMetric™ system internalizes the characteristics of the responses associated with each score point and applies this intelligence in subsequent scoring. The approach is consistent with the procedure underlying holistic scoring. IntelliMetric™ creates a unique solution for each stimulus or prompt. This is conceptually similar to prompt-specific training for human scorers.(See Automated Essay Scoring)

MY EDITOR is a multilingual proofreading system. More than spelling correction, this sophisticated technology analyzes text to detect and correct errors in categories such as grammar, mechanics, style, usage, and formatting. MY Editor also provides detailed descriptions and targeted feedback.

What is a Proxy/Caching Server? This term is used particularly for a type of networking software that sits on a server on the outskirts of a school or organizations network that acts as a” traffic cop” for incoming and out coming Internet traffic. When the proxy receives a request for such a URL (www.myaccess.com ), it strips off the prefix and looks for the resulting URL in its local cache. If found, it returns the document immediately, otherwise it fetches it from the remote server, saves a copy in the cache and returns it to the requester. The cache will usually have an expiry algorithm which flushes documents according to their age, size, and access history. In addition, proxy servers can be “layered”—have one on top of another-school and district and/or the ISP used by the district.

Routers are like intersections whereas switches are like streets. A router is a device that forwards data packets along networks. A router is connected to at least two networks, commonly two LANs or WANs or a LAN and its ISP`s network. Routers are located at gateways, the places where two or more networks connect, and are the critical device that keeps data flowing between networks and keeps the networks connected to the Internet. When data is sent between locations on one network or from one network to a second network the data is always seen and directed to the correct location by the router.