Introduction to the Self-Service Option for Optical Scanning of Student Assessments

This article explains the steps for the self-service optical scanning station located in the Faculty Learning Space, Job 103.

Audience

This article is intended for faculty who have student exam answer sheets to scan.

Platform

Scantron Optical Scanner and Remark Self-Service Software

What is the self-serve optical scanning station?

Located in Smiddy 322B and in the Library across from the Circulation Desk faculty can process scanning jobs at their convenience whenever these buildings are open. At the self-service station, faculty can quickly process student assessments without needing to fill out long forms, having long wait times, or making multiple trips. With just a few clicks, faculty can log in to the software, scan the bubble sheets, send reports to their email, and view test data in minutes. To protect data privacy, no reports or raw data are stored on the computer or in the software. A staff member from the IT Service Desk or the Center for Instructional Design and Educational Technology department will be available to assist and provide training to faculty in the self-scanning process Monday-Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm.

Important Note about Exams

The self-service optical scanning software cannot grade questions with more than 1 answer.  Questions are 1:1 with each question equal to 1-point. The software does not allow additional credit to be applied to any individual or set of questions. 

Self-service scanning in 10 steps

1. Click on the "Ithaca College RAH" application on the desktop computer. The icon is a red circle with two gears.

2. UPDATED: Select "Optical Scanning" from the drop-down menu of the "Operator" field. Do not select your name for this field.

3. Select your name (or the name of the professor) in the drop-down menu of the "Send To" field.

4. Next to "Automation" choose the color option of the Scantron sheet that you administered for your exam.

5. Click "Start Remark."

6. Load the answer sheets into the OpScan Scanner next to the computer, making sure not to exceed the maximum level of sheets, and press on the "press to load" button on the top right of the machine. 

7. After loading your sheets, click "OK" on the pop-up window on the computer screen. The scanner will begin immediately, so make sure you have already loaded the sheets before clicking OK. NOTE: If you have two versions of an exam, they will need to be run as individual exams.

8. At this point, if you have more sheets from the same exam that did not all fit into the scanner at once, load the remaining exams and click OK to continue scanning for the same report. Once all of the sheets from your exam have been scanned, click "Cancel" to complete the scan and generate reports. The reports will be automatically generated after the scans are completed. A pop-up will notify you when the batch of reports has been completed. Click OK.

9. Once the reports have been generated and compressed into a zip file, the documents will be sent automatically to the email of the person put in the "Send To:" field from the second step. Click OK to finish the process. 

10. When you download the compressed file from your email, it will contain all of the generated reports from one exam scan. If you want to upload the grades into your Canvas Gradebook, you will have to create an Assignment and select "paper only" before manually entering the grades. Here are directions from the Canvas Community on how to create a non-submission assignment and on how to enter grades into the Gradebook.

If you have any technical issues or questions about this process, visit the IT Service Desk down the hall for assistance. If you would like in-person training on the process, stop by the IT Service Desk or schedule a training session with an IT staff member by contacting the IT Service Desk at (607) 274-1000 or by email at servicedesk@ithaca.edu.