A long awaited techological advancement in scoring tests and surveys with less than one error in 1.5 million marks!
Error rates as high 0.5% is unacceptable for students taking SAT and other tests. Error rates near 0.01% is the best ever achieved by standardized scoring systems using Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) technologies. AVANTE has pioneered the use of optical imaging technologies with innovative use of scaling and quantitative pixel measurements to achieve accuracy rates of 0 errors in 1,500,000 marks! This rate was certified by an independent testing laboratory for Federal election applications.
SOLUTIONS FOR FIXING THE COLLEGE BOARD SAT SCORING ERRORS
The recent scoring errors of SAT by the tabulation company engaged by the College Board highlighted the long needed technology upgrading. The errors were attributed to the moisture induced paper expansion and inability to resolve lightly marked “bubble marks”.
The inability to resolve lightly marked “bubble marks” and errors due to paper expansion or shrinkage are known problem for at least 30 years since automatic tabulation of standardized tests was used. When combine with the inherent paper alignment errors, as much as 1.5% of tests were tallied wrong. For the individual taking the test, the error rate is as high as 400 points or 25% in a 1600 points test.
Interestingly, the same method and error rates also appeared in tabulation of votes in US elections when paper ballots are used. In fact, the Federal Voting System Standards of 2002 specifically mandate less than 1 error in 500,000 marks when the paper ballot is marked correctly (i.e. properly filled “bubble marks”). There is no proven solution capable to pass the testing requirements based on the more traditional discrete sensor-OMR technology that is also used commonly in scoring standardized tests.
There is a solution recently developed for tallying ballots using pixel count and document imaging technology by AVANTE International Technology, Inc. located in Princeton, NJ. It is the first to pass this stringent federal testing with zero error in tabulation in 1,500,000 marks. The same technology has been used successfully for tabulation of surveys and questionnaires besides tallying ballots.
The following compares AVANTE's Test and Survey Scoring System and the conventional OMR and discrete sensor mark-sense systems:
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COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DISCRETE SENSOR/OMR AND PIXEL-IMAGING (AVANTE Patented US 6,892,944; 7,077,313 and other patents pending) |
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DISCRETE SENSOR-OMR |
IMAGING + PIXEL COUNT |
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Recognition of filled “bubble mark” |
Yes |
Yes |
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Recognition of lightly filled “bubble mark” |
Mostly no (Need high threshold) |
Yes |
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Independence on timing tracks |
No |
Yes |
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Ability to resolve registration (fiducial) marks |
No |
Yes |
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Ability to resolve wrinkled and creased papers |
No |
Yes |
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Ability to resolve paper shrinkage/expansion |
No |
Yes |
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Recognition of “þ” and “ý” marks |
Mostly No or marginal. |
Yes |
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Resolving barcode (type or individual form) |
Yes |
Yes |
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Resolving multiple and different pages |
Yes |
Yes |
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Resolving random orientation of pages |
No |
Yes |
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“Separating” written answers from “bubbles” |
No |
Yes |
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Automatic self-check for accuracy |
No |
Yes |
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Ability to retrieve individual test for recount |
No |
Yes |
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Speed (Per Scanner) |
Up to 10,000 pages/hr-scanner |
Up to 6,000 pages/hr-scanner |
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Accuracy |
> 1/1,000 (2006 SAT case: >1/100) |
<1/1,500,000 (Federal ITA tested) |
The discrete Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sensor technology relies on completed documents passing through the scanner “exactly” straight. The width marking positions must line up “correctly” and timing must be exact for reading the length of the paper. With the use of advanced document imaging technology, AVANTE uses fiducial markings to scale for paper orientation and expansion/shrinkage variations. The quantitative use of counting pixels in each “bubble mark” also provides automatic self-checking for possible light markings or other smearings or errors. The following table is a summary of differences between traditional discrete sensor OMRs and imaging with quantitative pixel counting technologies.
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Comparative Analysis of the Traditional Discrete Sensor Based “OMR” Tabulation System And Pixel Based Optical Imaging Tabulation System |
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Discrete Sensor Based “OMR” System |
Pixel Based Optical Imaging System (AVANTE patented innovation) |
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Ease of Audit |
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Costs of forms and readers |
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Multiple page forms |
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Stacking and alignment |
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Flexibility of forms |
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Accuracy |
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