Artificial Intelligence is a buzzword in education, but the underlying technology driving real change is RAG: Retrieval-Augmented Generation. This technology is the secret behind how modern platforms solve the biggest bottleneck in coaching: creating high-quality tests.
The Legacy Problem: Why OCR Isn't Enough
For years, educators tried using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan old test papers. OCR is great for plain text, but it completely fails when faced with complex calculus equations, chemical structures, or regional languages. It results in gibberish that requires hours of manual correction.
Enter RAG
Retrieval-Augmented Generation combines retrieval from selected source material with a generative model. When used for assessment drafting, it can make relevant source passages available to the model and improve traceability. It does not guarantee correct questions or formatting.
Grounding reduces risk; it does not remove hallucinations
A model can still produce unsupported questions, incorrect answers, or misleading explanations even when source material is retrieved. Require faculty review, preserve the source reference where possible, and test the workflow against a manually verified answer key.