Distributed and central exam paper capture, processing and on-screen marking

Built around our Centre Print Scan (CPS) technology, the system performs two main functions; paper distribution and paper capture. The flexibility of CPS is such that whether your centres are national hubs, processing hundreds of thousands of papers, or much smaller distributed centres capturing a few hundred papers per day, we have a deployment to suit.

Whether you need to use your existing assessment stationery or need us to design new purpose-built paper templates, we can personalise the pages with candidate details for electronic distribution direct to centres. Centres can then print locally, on normal office-class laser printers, or send to local commercial print-shops. Either way, the ability to instantly distribute exam materials securely across the globe significantly reduces the time, cost and risk, whilst offering the robustness of papers personalised to the candidates.

Post-exam, the venues gather the papers and simply feed them into a high-speed paper scanner using our simple-to-use eScan client. As they go through the scanner, eScan reads page objects, such as tracking barcodes, brightness/contrast indicators and the page structure to identify the page type, the candidate and to validate that the image is of a suitable quality.

This real-time reconciliation and image validation is crucial; by using eScan, it ensures that by the time the markers see the images they are of a consistent quality and ready-linked to candidates. If a scanned image fails to meet the expected image quality, the centre will be alerted that a re-scan is necessary while the page is immediately to hand, still in the scanner.

To aide both pre-and post exam activities, CPS provides a detailed web-portal to allow the centres to view upcoming sessions and to monitor scanning progress for past sessions. This enables the centres to manage their own progress, with missing pages, duplicates or other issues immediately visible so that they can take the relevant actions.

Once the scripts are captured and reconciled, they can be presented as zonal images in eMark, which facilitates on-screen general marking for short and long text responses by human examiners.

At ePC, we understand that every organisation is different, every assessment is tailored and each candidate is unique. There is no one-size fits all solution, so we can draw upon the components within the CPS platform to design and build a bespoke process that suits your organisation.

Key benefits

Computer-aided assessment reduces lead-in and lead-out times on exams
Increased visibility and transparency throughout the entire process for examination centres
Clear and concise examination scripts for candidates and invigilators
Personalised examination scripts reduce reconciliation errors
Candidate response paper reconciliation and exception handling can be managed by local centres
Save time capturing multiple choice and short text responses
Ensures adherence to marking policies
Reduction in clerical marking errors
Accurate reporting on marker quality with robust controls