The pipeline
- 01MaskFictitious number. Flap torn off.
- 02ScanOverhead or high-speed. Books may be opened.
- 03CloudPrivate server. Copy, pages, quality.
- 04AgencyEvery copy reviewed page by page.
- 05PacketsApproved books assigned to examiners.
- 06RevalUnmarked original. Marks stored separately.
Direct answer
University on-screen marking only works if the exam cell can see every copy’s state in realtime and act: reject bad scans, assign packets, and follow up when evaluation stalls. Agencies own scanning quality — page completeness, not academic marks.
How it works
Think of four rooms: (1) identity masking and capture, (2) cloud ingest and QA, (3) academic marking, (4) examination control. Mixing those logins is how scripts leak. Progress should be counted the way exam cells already think: by course or paper, live — not a vanity percentage at week’s end.
On the floor: fictitious numbers are printed, identity flaps torn off, then copies go through overhead or high-speed scanners (books may be torn open or restuck so every page can be imaged). Images land on a secure private cloud. The system identifies the copy, number of pages and scan quality. The agency panel then reviews each copy so missing or unreadable pages never become “ready”. Approved copies are assigned as packets to examiners.
What we built in Avid OSM
- Ingest: copy identification, page count and quality flags after private-cloud upload
- Agency panel: manual review of each copy for complete, readable scanning; recapture when needed
- University panel: empanel examiners, assign packets, configure auto follow-up, see QA → ready → assigned → submitted in realtime, including scanned / assigned / submitted counts by course
- Mark layers: free-hand digitally marked copies are stored and kept; revaluation and second revaluation open the unmarked original
- Automated follow-up: WhatsApp, email, scheduling, and agency escalation so delayed packets are not only a spreadsheet colour
Documented production history: started in 2020 for Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Law University, Jaipur; used for four years at more than 3,00,000 answer sheets per year of that period.
Key considerations
- Follow-up messages are operational, not academic instructions to change a mark.
- Frozen / billable copy counts matter for examiner bills; they should match submitted evaluation, not “opened once”.
- Marks still need a path into gazette software — in Avid’s stack that can be Avid University ERP COE workflows.
Avid’s approach
Canonical product: Avid OSM. Pipeline explainer: digital evaluation of answer scripts.
FAQ
What is the evaluation pipeline in Avid OSM?
Masked books are scanned (overhead or high-speed), uploaded to a secure private cloud, identified (copy, pages, quality), reviewed copy-by-copy in the agency panel, then assigned as packets to examiners. Progress is realtime: QA → ready → assigned → submitted, plus revaluation on the unmarked original.
Who is the agency login for?
A separate agency login is for scanning quality: confirming every page is present and readable, and for operational follow-up — not for awarding academic marks.
How does revaluation work on the digital copy?
Free-hand digital marks from first evaluation are stored and kept. Revaluation and second revaluation use the original unmarked scan so the next examiner is not marking over previous ticks. No physical bundle has to be retrieved.