Exam paper distribution
Exam paper distribution and the delivery of personalised and blank answer sheets as well as supporting materials is achieved in one of three ways, depending on your deployment option.
Exam paper distribution and the delivery of personalised and blank answer sheets as well as supporting materials is achieved in one of three ways, depending on your deployment option.
ePC will print blank and pre-printed exam papers and despatch them securely by courier to each centre.
For on-premises deployments, clients can print locally using normal office laser printers or export templates to PDF files for commercial print.
For distributed systems, exam paper delivery can be via a web portal and grouped by component and/or candidate ready for downloading and printing.
One of the disadvantages associated with the traditional pen and paper test is the logistical challenge of transporting materials to remote centres as well as the return shipment of completed answer sheets back to a central location or bureau for scanning. It is not uncommon for the process to take several weeks when returning from some parts of the world.
Consequently, a web portal is available for larger deployments where venues can test their scanning, download and print question papers (QPs) and answer papers (APs), scan completed APs, monitor progress, fulfil re-scan requests and reconcile scanning. The portal serves as the front-end to the platform for your users as well as acting as the one-stop location for all centre printing and scanning functions.
Upon login, users are presented with three main sections:
The ability to instantly despatch exam papers and supporting materials securely across the globe significantly reduces the time, cost and risk, whilst offering the robustness of papers personalised to the candidates.
Performing much of the reconciliation work to help expedite script processing, the portal improves efficiency as the centres handle exceptions directly.
Secure logon fully supporting role-based access, Single Sign-on (SSO), Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) and synchronisation with user directories.
Markers and administration teams can request centres to re-scan APs where necessary to improve image quality for marking.
Where papers cannot be scanned, perhaps due to a candidate’s additional needs or where they have been barred from completing the test, their status can be set accordingly from within the portal to ensure the session can be completely reconciled.
Centres can record absent candidates in several ways; an invigilator’s report completed during the test, through the portal or by importing data from a third-party attendance system.
The portal will provide a central analytics dashboard for test centres and administration teams to view upcoming sessions and monitor scanning progress for any session or centre. This will include the real-time status of each candidate and test components (entered, paper printed, scanned, verified and marked), re-scan requests generated by markers and non-reconciled pages and outstanding issues for the centre.
To save transportation costs, exam paper distribution is online. Venues can download blank or personalised QPs and APs for each component from the web portal and arrange printing on laser printers or with a local commercial printer.
The download page provides session, description, create date and status information about each PDF. Guidance on printing test papers is provided in addition to instructions for candidates, invigilators and interlocutors. Test pages are available to assist in the calibration of printer and scanner settings.
The web portal allows centres to download non-personalised AP’s for walk-in/last minute candidates. Additionally, if you have need to make an amendment or QP’s/AP’s have been lost/damaged before the test date, centres can regenerate PDF packs for local printing.
You can customise the web portal to meet your corporate brand guidelines and change colours, logos and fonts.
Some of the benefits include:
Following a OJEU tender process, the British Council commissioned Civica as the prime contractor to deliver an on-screen marking (OSM) solution to mark up to 5 million ‘pen and paper’ IELTS tests each year.
As part of the agreement, Civica appointed ePC as its sub-contractor for the script capture, processing and verification work.
Expert in language assessment automates paper-based assessments with OMR exam processing and on-screen marking system.
Leading UK university uses TeleForm to design, scan and verify OMR answer sheets from undergraduate and postgraduate examinations.
Reading School release exam results faster by outsourcing 11-plus exam marking to ePC.
Colyton Grammar School (CGS) mark 11 plus entrance exam in two days with ePC’s scanning bureau services and automated marking system.
ePC capture the 11-plus entrance test for Chelmsford County High School for Girls.
ePC process the 11-plus entrance test for Heckmondwike Grammar School.
ePC capture and mark the 11-plus entrance test for The Blue Coat School.
