Exam is a modular platform for high-stakes exams that performs the following functions:

• Generation of personalised and blank answer papers (APs)
• Electronic distribution of APs and other materials directly to test venues
• Distributed and centralised scanning of APs
• Automatic data extraction and verification of response data
• Candidate reconciliation and centre management
• Export of responses and images to third-party on-screen marking solutions (OSM)

eXam is a modular solution for answer sheet capture, processing, and verification. It includes:

Exam paper design

• Personalised answer sheets with candidate name, number, centre, session date, component etc.
• Non-personalised (blank) answer sheets
• All question types including multiple choice (MCQ), short answer, long text, and drawing or diagram areas
• Answer sheet optimised for recognition with cornerstones and ID blocks to reduce manual intervention later in the process
• Barcodes to identify candidates and reconcile answer sheets
• Question randomisation

Web portal

• Supports single sign-on (SSO) for secure user access
• Custom branding
• Download and print question papers (QP) and personalised APs
• Download and print blank (non-personalised) QP/AP (for late enrolments, damaged originals etc.)
• Print test pages to calibrate printer/scanner settings
• Dashboard reporting to monitor the status of any session or centre
• Launch eScan module via a link on the web portal to scan completed APs

Image scanning

• Capture any type of structured form template designed with TeleForm Designer
• Automatically deploy and enforce scan configurations to minimise setup time and user training.
• Validate image quality through a combination of page identifying marks and brightness scales, checking page sizes, readability, and paper type in real-time as the images are scanned.
• Highlight incomplete scans to the scanning operator via an intuitive traffic light system. Batches containing incomplete scans will not be uploaded until all missing pages or ordering issues are resolved.
• Queue images for background upload, making the system tolerant of poor internet connectivity.

Image processing, conversion, and extraction

• Cornerstones for automatic page rotation, distortion correction and response area triangulation.
• Brightness bars for automatic scanner brightness\contrast setting and quality validation.
• Colour-coded side-bleeding for easy paper identification.
• 2D barcodes for automatic page recognition.
• Read constrained print fields (one cell per letter/number/character).
• Read short written responses from constrained print fields (one character per box) with intelligent character recognition (ICR).
• Read multiple choice questions with optical mark recognition (OMR).
• Read machine-printed text (e.g., pre-printed candidate data) with optical character recognition (OCR).
• Continuation sheet numbering to aid matching and reconciliation.

Image verification

• Queues any discrepancies, duplicates, or unclear papers for human verification in a web-accessible, high-speed verification interface.
• Minimal keystrokes with operators automatically progressing to the next character or field.
• Make decisions about duplicate images (retain, re-assign, discard or append).
• Monitor progress and highlight images pending review, completed, or escalated to a supervisor.
• Prioritises older session data to ensure deadlines are met.
• Provides users with the ability to request re-scans if the original is unreadable or poor quality.
• Allows for team management messaging.
• Maintains an audit log of all activity.
• Minimises keystrokes with all functions keyboard-driven to reduce processing time.
• Export data to any required format e.g., CSV, Excel.
• Export data to third-party on-screen marking solutions (OSM).

The benefits of eXam include:

• Capture hundreds of thousands of high-stakes exam answer sheets
• Scale up your infrastructure should your needs expand.
• Multiple deployment options with solutions available for national hubs processing hundreds of thousands of test papers to small, distributed venues capturing a few hundred answer sheets per day.