Creating Scannable Sheets Hands-On Workshop
01/24/2012 – 2:30 pm – 3:45 pm – Room T 105
Facilitators: Susan Gaulden, Ezdehar Abu-Hatab & Carlos Castillo
The Faculty Assessment Center (FAC), located in Room 2176, has 2 computers that have Remark Office OMR software installed on them. Remark software aids in the scanning of completed scannable sheets and the analysis of data collected from scanning the completed sheets.
Important note: To grade a test answer sheet, tally responses on a student questionnaire, etc. you must first design the scannable sheet, which is what this workshop will cover. However, once the sheet is designed it must be tested to make sure that there are no scanning errors before the sheet is distributed for use. [To test the scanability of the created sheet, a template must be made on the computer in the FAC using the Remark software. This template tells the Scantron machines exactly where to look for information on the sheets. Once the template is made, then some sample, filled-out sheets should be scanned to make sure it is successful. Only then should the scannable sheets you created be copied and distributed for use (i.e., data collection).] Also, the Scantron machines are duplex scanners, which means they read data on both sides of each sheet simultaneously. Therefore, the scannable sheets should be copied “double-sided.” The quality of the photocopy is important – if there is a lot of ‘speckling’ the Scantron machines will have a hard time reading the completed sheets.
TO CREATE A PERSONALIZED SCANNABLE SHEET using Microsoft Word, please complete the following steps:
1)Go to – Gravic is the company that sells the Remark Office OMR software.
2)Click on the Remark dark blue tab at the top.
3)Click on the Remark Office OMR hyperlink.
4)Click on the light gray Downloads tab under the Remark Office OMR Software header.
5)Scroll down the page until you see OMR Bubbles Font, Size: 4 KB. Click on the omrbubbles.zip button and choose Save. Save the zipped file onto the Desktop.Click on Allow if/when prompted. You can now close Internet Explorer for the time being. {Note: Gravic has designed afree true-type font that will create encircled letters and numbers that can be used in virtually any Windows-based word processing application. The font was designed with Remark Office OMR in mind, so it will work well with your forms. When using the font, type your numbers and letters with spaces in between. 10-point size is ideal.}
6)Double click on the zippedomrbubbles folder on the Desktop. Click on the OMRBubblesfolder. Select Extract all files. Click on Extract to extract the files to the Desktop. At this point you should have a True Type font file named omrbubbles visible on the Desktop(in addition to the zipped omrbubbles folder).
7)The omrbubbles font needs to be in a specific location on the computer. It must be moved to the Windows\Fonts folder. To do this, right click on the omrbubblesTrue Type font file(not the zipped omrbubbles folder) on the Desktop; select Cut; Locate the Computer\OS (C: )\Windows\Fonts folder; and then right click in this field and select Paste. Hopefully, the computer installed the new bubble font where it needs to go – to check this, use Windows Explorer to confirm that OMR Bubbles True Type font is located in the Computer:\OS (C: )\Windows\Fonts folder.
8)Now restartthe computer before trying to use the font.
9)Open Internet Explorer and go back to the Remark Office OMR page on the Gravic website and click on the light gray Sample Forms tab.
10)Sample forms for use in Primary Education, which you may edit if you like, are visible. Scroll down further and click on the blue-and-white Plus Sign next to Higher Education.
11)Find a document which looks similar to one you would like to create. Click on Word Documentto open it in Microsoft Word. Click on Open when prompted. Note: There are also quite a few examples of personalized scannable sheets already created by ECC faculty available on the computers in the FAC. A few example ECC-faculty created forms may also be downloaded in pdf form from the Home Page (scroll down to the Faculty Assessment Center section) of the ECC SLO Assessment website,
12)Note: All sections of the document that involve bubble font and/or shade-in circles are formatted as Word tables, which may not be obvious since the row and column lines have been made ‘invisible.’ If you’d temporarily like to see these lines while you are editing the document, highlight (select) the entire table area;right click your mouse; select Borders and Shading; and click on All, then OK.
13)Edit the table as necessary for your use. If you need to add or delete rows, please right click when you are in the table and select Insert or Delete Cells… respectively. Once you are done editing the table, you must make the row and column lines invisible again (or else the scanner will have a hard time reading the shade-in circles). To do this, highlight the entire table area; select Borders and Shading; and click on None.
14)DON’T FORGET TO SAVE YOUR FILE BY GIVING IT A NEW FILENAME! Bring it with you on a thumb drive, e-mail it to yourself as an attachment, or upload it into Dropbox so you can keep and use this document.
Lastly, there are several options available on the bottom of the Remark Office OMR page that are designed to introduce you to the capabilities of Remark Office OMR. Feel free to Watch a brief video introduction or to View a product tour of Remark Office OMR 8.0. Understand, of course, that you are not expected to become Remark experts – this is just information to show you what this software, which is installed on the FAC computers, makes possible regarding data collection and analysis.
workshop co-sponsored by ICAC (Ines Figueiras, Chair) & PDAC (Margaret Botney, Chair)