Grading on a Tablet

Steven M. McKay August 2, 2016

Contents

1 Introduction2

2 Gathering Required Pieces2 2.1 Adobe Acrobat Pro...... 3 2.2 Python 2...... 3 2.3 gradepages.py, converttojpg.py, byuexamheader.sty and tabletgrader.sty...... 3 2.4 Ghostscript or Imagemagik...... 4 2.5 Auto Multiple Choice...... 4 2.6 LibreOﬃce...... 5

3 Workflow5 3.1 Preparing your Document...... 6 3.2 Creating the AMC Project...... 12 3.3 Grading...... 15 3.4 Post Processing...... 17 3.4.1 Convert the pdf files to jpg files...... 18 3.4.2 Run OMR...... 18 3.4.3 Create the Spreadsheet...... 18

4 Unusual Circumstances 20 4.1 Single sided or double sided exams...... 20 4.2 Multiple Sections...... 20 4.3 Printer Setup on OS X...... 20

1 1 Introduction

This document outlines one possible way to grade exams on a tablet. I do not claim that it is the only way, or even the best way. It is a method that works for me. In order for me to be able to grade on my tablet, I have had to deal with the following requirements:

• I need to be able to transfer the exams to pdf’s in an easy way.

• I need to be able to split the exams by page number, so that I can grade one problem at a time, or one page at a time.

• I need some way for the scores of each exam to be recorded automatically.

• I need some way for the exams to be returned to the students.

There is no one piece of software that meets my needs. In some cases, I needed to write the software myself, as it did not appear to exist. In the sections that follow, I hope to be able to document how an interested instructor can also grade on an ipad (or any tablet - I have not veriﬁed windows tablets, but they probably work.)

2 Gathering Required Pieces

The following software is necessary to perform the above functions. (There may be some software that is not on this list, but is used as part of one of the software packages below. Note that most software listed (except my scripts and acrobat pro) is software that was developed on linux operating systems. They can be installed using the package system for that environment. If you are on a mac, most can be installed using macports (www.macports.org). You will need macports to install AMC anyway, so you might as well use it for the other pieces. The caveat is that you can install LibreOﬃce directly without macports.

• Adobe acrobat pro. (This may not be necessary).

• A python 2 operating environment (probably 2.7+)

• gradepages.py, converttojpg.py, and tabletgrader.sty*.

2 • Ghostscript and Imagemagik (Imagemagik may require ghostscript)

• Auto-multiple-choice (available at http://home.gna.org/auto-qcm/) Note that AMC has other requirements. It normally runs on linux. I have a copy running on osx. I don’t know but I don’t think it can run on windows. There are workarounds.

• LibreOﬃce (preferred) or OpenOﬃce.

2.1 Adobe Acrobat Pro Acrobat pro is needed for one function only: to batch print many separate ﬁles. This is necessary on OS X, because the underlying CUPS printing system does not know anything about printing presets, and so it is impossible to specify two sided printing, or stapling on the command line. There may be another way to do this, but on a mac, it seems problematic. In linux, you can use CUPS software (standard on most systems) for this task, so you probably do not need Acrobat. Depending on the printer you use, you may also be able to avoid acrobat. I mention one workaround in the Unusual Circumstances section at the end of this document.

2.2 Python 2 Some of the scripts I have written are in python, so a working version of python will be needed on the computer you use.

2.3 gradepages.py, converttojpg.py, byuexamheader.sty and tabletgrader.sty These are scripts that I have written. gradepages.py is a script I wrote to split a pdf of exams into separate pages. I like to grade one page at a time, and this helps my workﬂow. gradepages.py uses two packages: PyPDF and img2pdf. In order to use gradepages, you will need to install these packages ﬁrst. Once you have a working python installation, you need to go to pybrary.net/pypdf and follow the instructions. (Note: There is a PyPDF 1.13 and a PyPDF 2.

1Starred items are packages that I have created myself.

3 My code has not yet been updated to PyPDF 2, so you will currently need the former.) You can easily install img2pdf using pip (if pip is installed). ”pip install img2pdf” will give you the package on your machine. gradepages also uses sqlite3, but that is usually installed by default. converttojpg.py uses ghostscript, and gradepages uses imagemagick. converttojpg.py is a command that takes all pdf’s in the current directory, creates a jpg directory and converts the pdfs, putting the jpg’s in ./jpg. The jpg files can then be sent to AMC directly. This is the only way I know to truly flatten a pdf that has been annotated on a tablet. However, it seems faster to convert to jpg and put the jpg in amc than to have amc deal with the pdfs directly. byuexamheader.sty and tabletgrader.sty are LATEXstyle files that simpli- fies common tasks and interfaces with AMC. They are not currently publicly available, but I will send them to you with the other scripts. You need to put them in a place where LATEXcan find it (which depends on the TEXsystem you are using). My scripts are not yet publicly available, so email me and I will send them to you. It is recommended to put the python scripts in a location that is in your path, and make them executable. I do not know how to do that in Windows, but in OS X or Linux, move the file to /usr/local/bin and run chmod ugo+x filename.py You should be able to run the file directly without writing python first.

2.4 Ghostscript or Imagemagik These are needed to convert pdf files to jpg. Even though auto-multiple- choice takes pdfs, for some reason, it loses any marks made on a tablet, even if the pdf is flattened first. So conversion to jpg saves the marks.

2.5 Auto Multiple Choice This is the heart of the tablet grading system. It allows the instructor to select a score for each problem in the pdf, and have the pdf compile the grades automatically. To obtain AMC, go to http://home.gna.org/auto-qcm/ and click on the download link. As far as I know, AMC currently cannot run on windows. It needs unix commands and GUI elements. I am sure it can be rewritten to run on win-

4 dows, but the authors do not have any desire to do so. It can run on many ﬂa- vors of Linux, and there are pre-compiled packages in many distributions. It also runs on OS X. (I have it running on my mac mini.) To run on recent ver- sions of OS X, you will also need to install XQuartz (xquartz.macosforge.org), as Apple is moving away from it’s native X11 server. If you are running Microsoft Windows on your PC, you have several choices.

• Ask your CSR to set up a Linux server in the underground data center, and install AMC on that. (I have done this - talk to me if you want to do it.) This is less than ideal, but works.

• Install Parallels or Vmware on your pc and install linux on that.

• Set up your PC to dual boot windows and linux.

• Construct a usb key containing linux and amc that you can boot from. This scenario is probably the most convenient. Go to http://project.auto-multiple-choice.net/projects/auto-multiple-choice/ wiki/Using_AMC_on_a_PC_without_Linux_(with_a_live-USB_key) to see the details.

2.6 LibreOffice Auto multiple choice creates a spreadsheet of grades. This spreadsheet can be written in openoffice format, csv format, or as a pdf file. The csv format means you can upload the spreadsheet to Excel. However, if you choose to download the spreadsheet to OpenOffice (or LibreOffice - this is my choice for several reasons) then the spreadsheets created by AMC give you color- coded information at a glance (such as which questions were not graded, if a student marked two answers when they were only supposed to mark one, etc). This makes it well worth it to download LibreOffice to your computer.

3 Workﬂow

In order to use this system to grade, you need to follow the following workﬂow:

1. Prepare the document and create an AMC project.

5 2. Copy the exams.

3. Scan the completed exams.

4. Process the scans to obtain pdf’s for each question (that the instructor needs to grade).

5. Convert the scans to jpg.

6. Send the converted jpg scans through AMC.

7. Within AMC, correct marking errors, calculate the grades, create the spreadsheet, and create an annotated exam for each student.

3.1 Preparing your Document AMC is a robust and versatile system for creating exams. Its capabilities far exceed what I am going to outline here. For more details, look at the manual. In this section, I am going to discuss the creation of an exam with a multiple choice section and a free response section. Each multiple choice question can have one correct answer, or multiple correct answers. It is assumed at this point that the instructor knows how to write a document in LATEXand can use a style file. We begin, as with all documents created in LATEX, with a source file. The start of the file can look like this: 1 \documentclass [12 pt ] { a r t i c l e } 2 \usepackage [box,completemulti] { byuexamheader} 3 \usepackage{amsmath} 4 \usepackage{enumerate} 5 \usepackage{ s i u n i t x } 6 \everymath{\ displaystyle } 7 \Course{Math 314}{ Multivariate Calculus } 8 \ I n s t r u c t o r { Steven M. McKay} 9 \TestName{Exam 3} 10 \Date{June 12,13,14} 11 \Stamp{NS} 12 \Barcode {30319227} 13 \newcommand{\ vct } [ 1 ] {\ langle #1\rangle} 14 \newcommand{\ vc } [ 1 ] {\ bf #1}

6 15 \begin{document} 16 \onecopy {72}{ 17 18 \ frontpage 19 20 \noindent{\ bfseries Instructions } 21 \begin{ i t e m i z e } 22 \item Do not write on the barcode area at the top of each page, 23 or near the four circles on each page. 24 \item Mark the correct choice in the multiple choice section. 25 Each multiple question is worth 4 points. 26 \item Show your work in the free response section. 27 Correct answers without appropriate work will receive no credit. 28 \item Work in the free response section must be given in the 29 space provided, or on the back of the sheet the problem is on. 30 If you use the back of the page, make sure you write ”work on back” 31 or e q u i v a l e n t . 32 \item Scientific calculators are allowed. 33 Graphing calculators are not. 34 No other electronic device is allowed. 35 \end{ i t e m i z e } 36 \ nextpage Some of the instructions above are standard LaTeX commands. I will explain the ones that are not. Line 2 loads the byuexamheader.sty package mentioned previously. Note that the options box and completemulti are really options for automulti- plechoice.sty, which tabletgrader includes. I think using box creates better spacing for questions. The other, completemulti, is an option for multiple choice commands that I used on this exam. You do not need to use either of these options, and you could include other options from AMC if you wish. byuexamheader is for the formatting of exams to be used in the BYU testing center. It is not required. Everything in the above listing is for the beginning of the exam. The following listings use commands in tabletgrader. If you do not use byuexamheader, then you will need to replace that package with tabletgrader in your preamble. Lines 7-12 deﬁne front page material for the exam. Most of these commands should be self explanatory. On line 11, Stamp deﬁnes the testing

7 center stamp to be used for this exam (RED - Exam will be scored by the testing center, RED DO NOT WRITE - like RED, but the exams will be reused, so students cannot write on them, and NS - which means the testing center will not score the exam.) Barcode gives the testing center barcode number. Latex will create a picture of the barcode on every exam. Because of the way AMC works, a separate exam is printed for each student. Each exam is unique. The multiple choice answers, for example are shuffled for each student, and the questions themselves could be shuffled also if the author wishes. Creating one version of the test and then copying it for every student will be confusing to AMC (who will think the same student’s exam is being inputted many times). Thus, we need a picture of the barcode. Note: You will need to pick up a barcode from the office each time you create a test, putting the code in the Barcode command. Do not reuse the barcode number for a different test - get a new number each time. (You should also throw away the barcode sticker containing your number so some one else does not use it.) The command onecopy is required by AMC. Everything corresponding to the exam is inside of onecopy. Note that while we see an opening brace, we do not see a closing brace. The closing brace is just before the end document command. The number inside of the braces is the number of unique exams that we need to create. The frontpage command typesets the front page of the exam. The nextpage command gives a new page. It is similar to clearpage or newpage commands, but acts differently in some situations. Now we can begin creating questions. I have three types of question environments, one for multiple choice questions, one for truefalse questions, and one for free response questions (graded by the instructor). In my exams, I usually lump the same type of questions together. This will be evident in the next section of code. However, you could group questions by topic, some being multiple choice, some being true/false, and some being free response, if you wish. AMC does not have any ordering restrictions. The next list is the multiple choice section. It uses the environment mcquestion to create questions, and the choices environment for possible solutions. The mcquestion environment has an optional argument (which can be anything except a blank) that indicates the question has multiple right answers. 37 \ setmultiplechoice {5} 38 \noindent{\ bfseries Part 1: Multiple Choice } Check the correct

8 39 response . 40 \vspace {.2 in } 41 42 \begin{ mcquestion }{A−c e n t r o i d } Find the centroid of the 43 quarter disk of radius 2 in the first quadrant. Choose 44 the correct answer for $\ overline {x }$. 45 \begin{ c h o i c e s } 46 \ wrongchoice {$\ frac 43$} 47 \ wrongchoice {1} 48 \ wrongchoice {$\ frac 83$} 49 \ wrongchoice {$\ frac 4{3\ pi }$} 50 \ wrongchoice {$\ frac 1{\ pi }$} 51 \ correctchoice {$\ frac 8{3\ pi }$} 52 \end{ c h o i c e s } 53 \end{ mcquestion } 54 55 \begin{ mcquestion } [m] {A−statements } Which statements are always true? Mark all that apply. 56 \begin{ c h o i c e s } 57 \ correctchoice { Stokes theorem gives us an alternative way to 58 calculate the flux through a closed and bounded surface. } 59 \ wrongchoice {The gradient gives a direction tangent to a level 60 curve or level surface. } 61 \ wrongchoice { I f $\ vc r$ represents the unit tangential on a curve 62 with constant curvature, then $\ vc r’$ is a constant. } 63 \ correctchoice {A velocity field with a curl of 0 is called 64 i r r o t a t i o n a l . } 65 \end{ c h o i c e s } 66 \end{ mcquestion } 67 68 \begin{ mcquestion }{A−Greens} Use Green’s Theorem to rewrite 69 \[\ oint C xˆ2y \ , dx+xy ˆ2\ , dy \ ] 70 as a double integral over $R$ (the interior of the simple 71 c l o s e d curve $C$ ) . 72 \begin{ c h o i c e s } 73 \ correctchoice {$\ i i n t \ limits R yˆ2−x ˆ2\ ,dA$} 74 \ wrongchoice {$\ i i n t \ limits R xˆ2+y ˆ2\ ,dA$} 75 \ wrongchoice {$\ i i n t \ limits R xˆ2−y ˆ2\ ,dA$}

9 76 \ wrongchoice {$\ i i n t \ limits R xyˆ2−xˆ2y \ ,dA$} 77 \ wrongchoice {$\ i i n t \ limits R xyˆ2+xˆ2y \ ,dA$} 78 \ wrongchoice {$\ i i n t \ limits R xˆ2y−xy ˆ2\ ,dA$} 79 \end{ c h o i c e s } 80 \end{ mcquestion } 81 82 \ nextpage On line 36, setmultiplechoice is not an AMC command, but is defined in tabletgrader. It sets the number of points that each multiple choice question is worth. (Note that you can individually set different points for different questions, but you would need to use the AMC commands directly to do that.) Note that setmultiplechoice affects the score of mcquestion and tfquestion environments, and can be reset. Thus, if you have a multiple choice section and a true false section, you can use setmultiplechoice more than once. On line 40, we begin the mcquestion environment. The AMC environment for a question is question. mcquestion modifies question so that the points for the correct answer are taken from the setmultiplechoice command. The mcquestion environment takes one optional argument, and one required argument. The required argument is the name of the question. It is impor- tant to give each question a name, because if the questions are shuffled, they need to be listed correctly in the spreadsheet (which may not be the order on a particular student’s exam). I like to preface multiple choice question names with “A-” and free response question names with “B-”, so that they are listed together in the spreadsheet, but you do not need to do so. Note: Make sure you do not use a period in your name (such as 16.4, for example). The optional argument indicates whether there are multiple correct answers. Note that the first and third questions have only one right answer, so a student will get 5 points for choosing the correct answer, and 0 if they choose any other answer. They will also get 0 if they mark more than one answer. On the second question, the student will get 5/4 points for each answer they mark or leave unmarked correctly (the number of points a question is worth divided by the number of responses). Note that not checking a box that should not be checked will give them points. Inside the mcquestion environment is the choices environment. This is a standard AMC environment. wrongchoice and correctchoice seem self explanatory. It does not matter in what order choices are listed, because AMC

10 will shuﬄe them anyway. If you do not want them shuﬄed, then add the option o to the choices environment:

\begin{choices}[o]

We end the multiple choice section with a nextpage, so that we can easily separate the the diﬀerent sections on separate pages. The next section is the true-false section. 84 \ setmultiplechoice {2.5} 85 \noindent {\ bfseries Part I I : } True/False. Mark each statement as true if it is always true. Mark the statement false if it is sometimes false. 86 87 \vspace {.2 in } 88 89 \begin{ t f q u e s t i o n }{B−t f 1} Stokes theorem allows us to calculate line integrals over a simple closed curve in a different way. \ end{ t f q u e s t i o n } 90 91 \vspace {.5 in } 92 93 \begin{ t f q u e s t i o n } [ f ] {B−t f 2} Compressible fluids have no curl. \ end{ t f q u e s t i o n } 94 95 \vspace {.5 in } 96 97 \begin{ t f q u e s t i o n } [ f ] {B−t f 3} A double integral can be used to express area. \ end{ t f q u e s t i o n } 98 \ nextpage The tfquestion environment is diﬀerent from the mcquestion environment in that the choices environment is constructed automatically. If an optional argument is present, the correct answer is false. Otherwise it is true. Note that the number of points per question has been reset for this section. The next section is the free response section. 99 \noindent {\ bfseries Part I I I : } Free Response. Show all work 100 for each question in the space provided. {\ bfseries DO NOT} 101 write in the administrative areas. 102 103 \begin{ freequestion }{C−centerofmass }{10} Find the center of mass of 104 an object whose position is the triangle with vertices $(0,0)$, 105 $(2,0)$, and $(2,1)$ if the density is given by $\ delta (x , y)=y $ . 106 \end{ freequestion }

11 107 \ nextpage 108 \begin{ doublepage } 109 \begin{ freequestion }{C−Jacobian }{10} Find $\ i i n t \ limits R xy \ ,dA$ 110 where $R$ is the region in the first quadrant bounded between 111 $xy=1$, $xy=2$, $\ frac yx=1/2$, and $\ frac yx=1$. 112 \end{ freequestion } 113 \ nextpage 114 \end{ doublepage } 115 } 116 \end{document} The freequestion environment takes two inputs: the name of the question and the number of points to assign to it. The doublepage assignment changes the deﬁnition of nextpage so that a blank page is inserted after the page in question. Due to the nature of AMC, the exams need to be printed doublesided, so there are no empty back pages unless you create them. While empty back pages can be created in a number of ways, the doublepage environment will keep track of them so that pages can be split correctly later.

3.2 Creating the AMC Project Once you have created your document, you need to start AMC. When AMC is started, you should see a window like this:

12 Click on Project, then New. You will have an opportunity to start a new project. Enter the name you wish to use, and click new project. You will then see this screen:

If you have already created the file, click on file. otherwise, you could click on empty and write your file from scratch. If you click on file, you will have a chance to upload the file to the project. Note that the name of the

13 file does not need to match the name of the project in any way. Once you have done this (uploading or creating the file), click on update documents to create the exams. Note that the number of exams you choose can be given in onecopy, or if you give onecopy 1 (for one exam), you can choose the number of exams in AMC. If you have listed the number of exams in onecopy, you should keep the number of papers at 0 on the front screen. If there are errors, you will be given a partial list, and you can edit the source code to fix them. However, the source code is no longer the code you created, but the code you uploaded to the project. To edit, click on Edit Source File. Once you are ready, click on update documents again. Note that your barcode pic must be copied to the project directory by hand. You can then click on Question to see your completed exam. Once the exam is formatted to your liking, you can proceed to layout. Click on Layout detection, which records the position of boxes to be checked. Before you print for the first time, if you are working in OS X, you will need to change printing defaults. In the main AMC window, click on edit, then preferences. Scroll down the window until you see printing method. Change it to ”to files”, and click OK. Now when you create exams the pdf will be created instead of trying to print directly. You will only need to do this once. To print, click on print papers, and select which exams you want printed (usually all of them). Then select print. This creates one exam per student. The exams are inside the pdfs directory inside your project directory. You will need to print each pdf file separately, using twosided and stapled options. You can do this using portfolios in Adobe Acrobat Pro and osx printing presets. See the last section for an alternative. You can now exit out of AMC. Click on project and save, then project and quit. The tests can now be taken to the testing center. Note that the testing center requires the correct stamp on each exam, along with the number of the exam. If you print the pdf files in order, each exam will be numbered in the correct order, so there is nothing for the testing center to do. You should point this out, because if they stamp the exams, or write the exam number on them, they could possibly stamp or write over one of the corner circles. This will prevent correct processing of that exam later.

14 3.3 Grading Once the exams are completed, you will get them back from the testing center (usually in the same order you sent them). There is some processing that needs to be done before they can be scanned. The staple and any extra papers (that weren’t part of the original exam) need to be removed. The staple can be removed easily, but if a student stapled extra papers to the exam, the second staple can be a problem. Thus, I tell students that scratch paper will not be saved, and not to staple any extra papers to the exam. However, it doesn’t always work. It helps if you create enough space on exams so that the student doesn’t need scratch paper. To remove the staple, cut off the corner with a guillotine paper cutter. You can usually cut two exams at a time. (Secretaries could do this task, as well as the scanning.) We have a stack cutter that can remove the staples of about 20-25 exams at the same time. It cost less than 200 dollars. If you are going to do a lot of scanning, I highly reccomend it. Once the staple is removed, then the stack of exams is scanned to pdf. Make sure you specify two sided booklet scanning and set the dpi to at least 300 (higher dpi is ok but increases the processing time). The best option in terms of file size is to scan in monocrome. (On our Sharp copier it is called Mono2.) If you are scanning at 300 dpi, I would also up the contrast (on a scale of 1-5, the normal is 3 and I usually go 4). If the stack is large you may need to divide it, and scan it in several piles. Note that AMC does not care how many files you have. At this point we are going to run the exams through AMC. This is done by running the scans (in pdf format) through AMC directly. To do this, start AMC, then click the second tab, “Data Capture”. Click on ”Automatic”. You will be asked to select the scanned files. They do not need to be in the project directory. Note the two options at the bottom of the window. Make sure ”copy to project directory” is checked. (It usually is). Then in the drop down box, select ”Different answer sheets”. Click OK, and AMC will go to work importing your pdfs, splitting them and converting them to either png or jpg or some other format, and copying them to the scan directory. AMC will copy the files into your project directory and run marks recognition. When you are done, AMC will look similar to this:

15 If everything was run through correctly, you will see no errors. If there are errors, you can choose to fix them now or later on. (More about that later). Note that the information in AMC is incorrect, because the free response section is not graded yet. We now create the grading files. In a terminal, go to the project directory and run gradepages.py. This will create one pdf file for each free response question, in a directory scans/tobegraded inside the project directory. (Note that gradepages has several options. The default option is to create one file per problem, and name the file from the problem name. Look at the .py file to see other options.) I grade on an iPad, so I will outline the process in that case. However, there is software for android tablets that can be used as well. The app must be able to annotate pdfs with handwritten notes. There is probably software for Windows that will work as well. To grade on an iPad, I first upload the files to Dropbox or Google Drive. On my iPad, I have an app called Notability that can download from either

16 of those cloud services. I download the files to Notability, and grade the pages there. (Notability annotates pdfs.) There are other apps that do this. Lately I have been trying an app called GoodNotes. Notability works well for me, but GoodNotes also works well, and has some minor advantages over Notability for grading. However, Notability is superior as an overall notetaking app. In order for the mark recognition system to work well, a certain percentage of the box must be filled in. Thus it is inadvisable to use too thin of a pen tool. Fortunately, notability and GoodNotes allow you to choose many different sizes of pens. I usually use a medium thick pen tip to mark the box for the grade, and switch to a thinner pen if I want to make a comment. To grade on an android tablet, our department uses Squid (formerly Pa- pyrus). Squid works well and can download and upload to dropbox and google drive. If the tablet is a samsung with its smart pen, this system has an additional advantage that the grader can mark with the pen and erase with their finger, which is really convenient.

3.4 Post Processing Once grades are assigned to each problem, files need to be run through AMC for marking and scores. Before this can be done, however, the pdf needs to be “flattened”. Currently, any marks made on the pdf from the tablet exist as a separate layer. There are many reasons why this is done, but for our purposes, it prevents AMC from reading the marks. For some reason, when AMC processes the pdf, the software removes the extra layer. This happens even if you have flattened the pdf by conventional means. (On OS X, you can use Preview to flatten files, for example). There is only one way that I have found that truly flattens the pdf. If you convert the pdf to png or jpg, you turn it into a bitmap image. Since AMC can use jpg or png files, this does not really lengthen the process. The post processing procedure is as follows:

1. Load the updated pdf ﬁles from your tablet back to dropbox or google drive.

2. Convert them to jpg using converttojpg.py.

3. Load the jpg ﬁles into AMC.

17 4. Run the optical mark recognition. 5. Create the spreadsheet and an annotated ﬁle for each student. I will discuss each task in order.

3.4.1 Convert the pdf files to jpg files Once you have uploaded the files to dropbox, you need to put them in a directory by themselves. You can leave them on dropbox, but this operation can quickly fill dropbox if you only have regular space. In a terminal, cd to the directory and run converttojpg. This will create a subdirectory “jpg” and put the converted jpg’s there.

3.4.2 Run OMR If you start AMC back up (if you didn’t just leave it running for several days), you will need to open your project again. If you have an open project for another exam, make sure you save before changing projects. Click on the Data Capture Tab. Click on the Automatic tab. Choose the jpg files you just created. Click OK. This is an opportunity to see if you have any unrecognized scans and fix them, if possible. If you have unrecognized scans and want to fix the score manually, you can click on the ”Manual” button, and then select the page. Click on the mark that was missed, and click ok. Note you can do this in cases where students marks were unrecognized or they did not fill in enough of the box. You may notice that under this process, the pages containing free response questions will be processed twice. This is ok. AMC will update with the second scan.

3.4.3 Create the Spreadsheet Next, click the Marking tab. Click on Marks. This then processes the marks, associates them with a particular problem, and saves the score. There is a mean score that appears after you do this. I don’t know what it is for. It has nothing to do with the mean of the exam. If you wish, you can click on “Look at Marks” to double check you are not missing anything. However, it is easier to check from the spreadsheet. If you have a spreadsheet that has students byu id’s along with their name, you can include it in the next section. (It needs to be in .csv format).

18 You can associate the primary key with the BYUID code from the exam. This will allow you to create student files with their names later. In fact, you can create files with the correct format to allow them to be uploaded correctly in BYU’s learning suite. I will talk more about this below. Click on Automatic, and the associations will be made. If any associations failed, you can click on manual to fix them. Next, click the Reports tab. In the first section you can create a file with the student grades in it. There are several options, openoffice, csv, and pdf. You could save to csv and then import the file into excel. However, I urge you to use LibreOffice or OpenOffice. If you choose openoffice format, then when you click on export, it will give you a spreadsheet where mistakes or omissions are color coded. It is really easy to see where the problems are at this point. In the next section, you can create the files that will be returned to the students. AMC has a specific way it creates the names of the file using the exam number and (if known) the student name. However, you may want to change this. The Learning Suite people have told me there is a way to batch upload student feedback files for an assignment. To do this, the name of the file has to be very specific. Each file name has to be last- name firstname netID Examname.pdf . (Examname is the name of the item in the learning suite spreadsheet.) If you have a column in your spreadsheet (in the Marking tab) that has the name for each file in the correct format, you can use that. For example, in my spreadsheet, I have a column titled “Student File Names”, so in the field next to file name model, I put (Student File Names) and AMC will use those for the file names. If you leave the field blank, AMC will use its default model. Click on “Annotate Papers” and the student copies will be created. Click on Look at papers and the folder will pop up. You now have a spreadsheet with the scores, and the exam files to return to students. If you have email addresses in your spreadsheet, AMC will also email the exams to students, but it is not clear to me if that is FERPA compliant. AMC was developed by some teachers in France, and they may have less strict requirements.

19 4 Unusual Circumstances

There are some needs that come up once in a while, but are not part of the standard process. I will try to document them here.

4.1 Single sided or double sided exams Depending on how the exam is structured, some instructors prefer to give blank space on the back side of the exam in case the student needs more room. However, this is problematic when using AMC. If you want the blank page to be included in the ﬁnal student pdf, AMC needs to know about it. Thus, all exams are printed double sided, so as not to confuse AMC. If you have a question or a set of questions that require a blank page on the back, you can use the doublepage environment. This changes the deﬁnition of nextpage, so that any nextpage commands within the environment will typeset a back page that AMC can deal with. Note that you can use the doublepage environment multiple times.

4.2 Multiple Sections If you are typesetting an exam for multiple sections, and they are each separate exams in the testing center, you can use the command \sectionsize{xx}. This will do two things: First when the test number equals the specified size, the test number is reset, so that exams start again from 0. Secondly, the number of the testing center barcode is incremented by one. It is crucial that before you typeset the exams, that you get enough barcodes for each of your sections that are in a group. Give the first number in the tex file. At this time, the same number of exams must be used for all sections.

4.3 Printer Setup on OS X The difficulty with printing on os x, is that the printer needs to be configured by default as stapled, double sided. If it is not, it is difficult to print many files in batch unless you use portfolios in Acrobat pro. We have two printers in my department, a Sharp, and a Xerox. The following instructions work for the sharp, but not for the xerox. If it does not work for your printer, you will need to use Acrobat and portfolios. To set up the printer, do the following:

20 1. Go to system preferences and select ”printers and scanners”.

2. Create a new printer. Note that you are creating a printer queue for the same printer that you already have, so make sure you give it a diﬀerent name. You may need to have help from your computer support representative for this step.

3. Close system preferences.

4. Open a browser. In the url type localhost:631/admin. Click on Manage printers

5. Find the printer queue you just created and click on it.

6. In the administration drop down box, select ”Set Default Options”.

7. Look for the options you want to change. For example, on the output page for the Sharp, I can set 2-side printing and staple.

8. Click on Set Default Options when you are done.

You now have a printer queue that will print 2 sided and stapled by default. All you have to do now is open the printer queue and then drag and drop the ﬁles you wish to print to it.