This lesson details how to setup, prepare and configure your User Specific settings when Camera or Scanner Grading. The settings dictate what camera you use, as well as what you will be prompted for when camera grading or grading from a file (scanner grading).
1. Check Your Tech
Verify with your team what technology you need to administer and scan in your classroom!
At this time Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are the compatible browsers for Lightning Grader scanning.
Not all cameras are the same.
- You cannot expect the HP Webcam to have the same quality as an ELMO camera.
- This affects how big you can make your answer sheets.
- While it is possible to create a 100+ question assessments, scanning it successfully depends on your camera type. The bubbles become smaller and more crowded on the page.
If you are Scanning from a File:
- It scans in TIFF, PNG, JPEG, and PDF.
- It is best in greyscale and/or color.
- Some scanners have different contrasts settings, which makes scanning difficult for programming.
2. Review & Set Your Settings
By default, the settings are set up for success and don't need to be changed. However, there are 3 options available for your scanning preferences:
1. Click the Assessments tab.
2. Under Scanning, click Settings.
OR
3. When grading an assessment via the camera grader (Grade with Camera page) you can select Tools > Settings.
4. Both will bring you to a page that has settings options for the camera you are using, whether that is camera grading or scanner grading.
The default settings will not notify you of any possible issues until you change them according to your preference. You can check or uncheck your preferred settings and they will be saved in your user preferences. This will save the preferences until you clear your site cookies or cache.
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Unexpected Blanks notifies you when a question is left blank.
- Example: Question #1 is left blank (no bubbles are filled).
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More than Expected Responses notifies you if more bubbles are filled than answers required.
- Example: Question #1 has answer ‘AB’ and the question is filled in as ‘ABC’.
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Fewer than Expected Responses notifies you if fewer bubbles are filled than answers required.
- Example: Question #1 has answer ‘AB’ and the question is filled in as ‘A’.
You will choose settings for your web or document camera and a sheet-fed scanner, when applicable.
Why Do This? Enabling this setting will notify you via a pop-up when the camera grading detects any possible issues that you have set to monitor. The popup should look like the image below, and you can select or de-select any answers you see need fixing. Once you are done correcting the assessment click Save or Discard if you want the student to redo and resubmit the test.
5. Lightning Grader gives you the option to see all the questions as well and to change the answers on the spot. To do this, click show all questions in the pop-up.
The same options can be assigned when using a sheet-fed scanner, when you decide to upload answer sheets as a file to scan.
As always, once you've applied some setting changes, select Save Settings. Your settings will remain that way until you change them again.
3. Practice Scanning
Whether you are administering an assessment On The Fly or from a previously created assessment, it is important to do a test run with your scanning set up to make sure you are set up for success.
Lightning Grader is looking for contrast between the filled-in bubble and the blank bubbles. If you use a pen or pencil that is a light color, such as yellow or red, it will have a hard time scanning. Using blue or black ink or a pencil work best.
Glare is a big challenge for Lightning Grader. Pencil marks are reflective and can cause glare that disrupts the scanning process. If your students are using pencil, make sure that it is not causing glare so Lightning Grader can properly scan your assessment.
The Lightning Grader preview window is your view into what Lightning Grader "sees." Use it to make sure that all the bubbles appear dark in contrast to the rest of the paper. If some of the bubbles appear silver, white, or anything that is not black, this could be causing problems. Check your light and focus to try and make all the bubbles black!
Make sure the sheet you’re scanning has at least the same number of bubbles as there are questions on the assessment. For example, if there are 40 questions on the assessment, there should be at least 40 bubbles on the assessment. If there are less bubbles on the answer sheet than questions on the assessment, Lightning Grader will not scan the sheet.
Lightning Grader uses the black squares surrounding the bubble area to figure out where to start scanning. If your camera is too far away from the paper (or is too zoomed out in the case of document cameras) it may cause errors scanning. Also, if the camera is too close and some of the squares are cut off, Lightning Grader won’t know where to start reading the bubbles, and may appear to freeze. Make sure that all of the squares are visible in the preview window and you should be able to scan just fine
Pre-slugged answer keys work much better for scanning. Not only is the student ID bubbled in correctly, but the student’s name is also listed along with the assessment title. This is really helpful when you’re looking for a specific answer sheet in a big stack.
When scanning a previously created assessment, make sure that Autosave is checked. If you are scanning On The Fly, make sure to save your scanned student results every 10-15 minutes. This will prevent lost data and wasted time. Click Save & View Results to save.
In order to practice scanning you will need to Print Generic Answer Sheets. Try printing a blank one just for testing!
Next Steps
Ready to Scan? Visit Grade with Camera!