What is Optical Mark Recognition (OMR)?
Optical mark recognition (also called OMR and optical mark reading) is the process of capturing
human-marked data from document forms such as surveys and tests. Basically, OMR is the process of
scanning & processing the pencil or pen marks on the OMR sheets. OMR sheets are mostly used for
checking of OMR answersheets as well as collecting data from OMR survey forms & OMR application forms.
Based on mode of OMR processing & reading, there are two ways of Optical Mark Reading:
1. OMR Scanner Machines
- These are traditional old styled OMR scanner machines that shines a beam of light onto specially printed OMR sheets. It uses contrasting reflectivity on pre-determined positions to detect marks on OMR sheet.
- OMR devices use forms which are pre-printed on special paper and measure the amount of light which passes through the paper. Hence, a mark on either side of the paper will reduce the amount of light passing through the paper.
- These machines are mostly manufactured outside India.
- OMR scanner can only read the OMR sheets provided by scanner manufacturer, hence manufacturer may create monopoly & has option to sell OMR sheet at any higher cost.
- These OMR scanner machines come at very high cost. approx. 4-5 lakh.
- Maintenance and support is difficult as vendor is outside India & hence they may charge as they want for maintenance.
- Some OMR scanners use color-drop method for reading OMR sheets.
- Customization & up-gradation of software becomes difficult to manage task.
2. SoftLogic's OMR Software
- In SoftLogic's OMR software, scanning & processing of OMR sheets are totally independent processes. You can use any document scanner to scan the OMR sheets & save scanned images on computer. OMR software then imports these images & processes them to extract results of OMR evaluation.
- You need not to use any specially made OMR sheets for our software. OMR sheets can be printed on any thick paper (min. 80 GSM recommended for good results). Both single color, two-color OMR sheets can be used. Even laser prints & photo-copy prints can be also used as OMR sheets.
- You can use any document scanner as OMR scanner with our OMR software.
- There is no need to purchase OMR sheets from any vendor. Our OMR software has in-built utility to create & design OMR sheets. You can just drag & drop OMR bubbles & edit the OMR sheet with rich-text editor & print on any printer of your choice.
- SoftLogic's OMR software is available at lowest price in India.
- Our OMR software is very easy to maintain & it is backed by strong technical support team to help you in any difficulties operating while OMR software.
- Our OMR software uses image-processing technology for optical mark reading.
- Our OMR software can be easily customized as per your needs.
Applications / uses of Optical Mark Recognition (OMR):
- Multiple choice questions (MCQ) type exam assessment
- OMR based application form processing
- Recruitment exams, resourcing / hiring HR process outsourcing
- Evaluations & feedback
- Polls, surveys, consumer feedback, insurance applications etc