We are a small school with relatively small classes. My exams (for any course/level) typically contain at most 10 multiple choice questions. However, we are now administering the ACS exams as final exams for many of our courses. Since I started, we have always graded these by hand using self-generated answer sheets where students write in their choice (no bubble filling). For multiple reasons, we think we need a more efficient (and accurate) system. I am guessing there is cool technology out there that would let me print answer sheets and then grade the papers after scanning them or something else to convert them to an electronic file? I would particularly love a system that could then generate a spreadsheet of answers by student and question to aid in assessment. So, anyone use or know of anything great?
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I don't have any experience yet, but you motivated me to look. I am giving a multiple choice final in about 3 weeks, and I am going to give zipgrade a shot. So far it seems pretty easy. I entered the key with no problems. I'll report back later.
Sounds good Chip! I saw ZipGrade too. I was a little worried about something like that in the context of an ACS final exam because it mentioned something about uploading/storing results to a cloud server. There did seem to be a way to turn that feature off, though.
Yep, thought that was an important point.
I actually use clickers in self paced testing mode to collect and score multiple choice. It provides a nice snapshot of assessment data
ZipGrade rates out as awesome. It was very simple to enter the key and scan exams. They provide their own bubble sheets that you just photocopy. The only thing I haven't used yet is importing a class roster and seeing how it does with ID#s. It gave instant stats per question. I really liked it. I will be using it in the future. Apparently there was a time where you could purchase unlimited scanning, but not any more. You can buy a 3 month package or a yearly one. The price is low enough where it is worth it.
Yes, we also really liked ZipGrade. My colleagues used it for grading the ACS exams in general chemistry and it made short work and provided great statistics out. I also really liked that it captured the students written name in a small image so that it was easy to assign the exam to the student. We paid for a 1-year subscription, but since you only really need one per department (just pass the ipad around) it's cheap!
We also did not use the class roster/student ID feature. We did have the students bubble in the exam ID number just so they would have an identifying mark. Our students never use their student ID numbers for anything so it would be change to make them know them.
I tried out AKINDI, which is an online program where you upload a file of the scanned exams and it processes them. It was also nice and had some different statistical outputs. It is an (expensive) subscription service, but I think you can always use it for free if you just have one "active" exam at a time.
I used gradecam.com for the multiple choice part of my midterms last term for a class of ~400 students. It's free for up to 10 multiple choice questions. Just hold up to any camera (laptop, smartphone, document camera, etc). I used my laptop while TA's were grading the free-response questions.
Worked well. I liked that it gave statistics per question so I could tell which choices were distractors.