Gravic, Inc. is pleased to announced the release of Remark Office OMR 7. Version 7 has many great new features and enhancements, including the following:
- OCR. OCR (optical character recognition) has been added to the software in order to automatically recognize machine-printed characters.
- Recognition/processing updates. There have been several updates to recognition and processing, including:
- Missing/damaged mark recognition. The recognition algorithms have been updated to better recognize missing or broken marks within a region. This means that if one or more marks in a region is missing or degraded, Remark Office OMR will still be able to read the marks in many cases.
- Deskew/despeckle. Deskew/despeckle support has been added when scanning forms or reading from image files to improve recognition.
- Color/grayscale scanning. You can scan in color or grayscale without having to show your scanner’s TWAIN interface. The options are now available in the Scanner Properties window.
- Printing and exporting multiple reports. The ability to print, export, and generate multiple reports has been added to Remark Quick Stats in the form of a Report Batch Wizard. Reports can be exported to a single combined file or individually to separate files. Report batches can be saved and reloaded.
- Auto filtering of data. The ability to auto-filter reports has been integrated into the new Report Batch Wizard in Remark Quick Stats. You can select up to three separate fields by which to break down data into separate reports. For each unique set of records, a new report set will be generated automatically. For example, if you process course evaluations, Remark Quick Stats can automatically separate each instructor’s results into individual reports.
- Duplicate detection. You can optionally flag duplicate entries in a data set to alert you to a potential problem (e.g., when scanning tests a student’s ID number comes up twice).
- Answer key utility. The Grade Wizard has been broken out into its own utility, which can be accessed without launching the entire Remark Office OMR application. In addition, the Answer Key utility/Grade Wizard can now save what is called a Generic answer key file (*.gaky) that does not save any information for ungraded questions. This allows a generic answer key to be applied to any form type with enough graded questions and answer choices.
- Reusing learning objectives. Learning objectives/Analysis group names can be imported from a database or spreadsheet format into the Grade Wizard/Survey Wizard. You may select the objectives you wish to use from a list upon import.
- New barcode types. New barcode functionality has been added so that the software reads many new 1D and 2D barcode types. Textual barcodes can now contain multiple items separated by a delimiter (e.g., you can have multiple textual items in one barcode and separate them into separate fields in the data grid).
- Ranking question type. A ranking question type was added to the OMR region types so that you can have respondents rank items in a list.
- Instant graphs. A graph viewer has been added to the Data Center to display an item analysis of the current field in the data. The graph viewer is split with the image viewer at the bottom of the screen.
- Report updates. The following updates have been made to specific reports:
- Crosstab Report: The correct answer is now marked with an asterisk when grading.
- Item Statistics Report: You may now sort the Item Statistics by question difficulty.
- Detailed Item Analysis: You may now sort the data on the Detailed Item Analysis Report.
- Extra credit questions for test grading. Support for extra credit questions has been added through the Grade Wizard. Extra credit questions do not count toward the total points possible for the test, so any points scored on extra credit questions are in fact "extra" and make it possible to score over 100% on a test.
- Qualitative response coding. For data entry style image regions, you can now enter a list of qualitative response codes and values when setting up the region. Response codes can also be loaded, edited, and saved. Image regions with response codes have a drop-down list in the data grid and Review Exceptions pane. The response choices are also sent down to Remark Quick Stats for analysis (as a multiple choice style question) and to exported data.
- Review exceptions updates. Several updates have been made to the Review Exceptions functionality:
- Skipping exception flag types. When reviewing exceptions in the data, you can optionally skip certain flag types and the flag will be removed. This feature allows you to review data multiple times without having to review areas that have already been reviewed.
- Reviewing exceptions with database lookup. When reviewing a database lookup error, once the correct lookup value is set, the appended fields from the database will be filled automatically based on the entry entered for the lookup region.
- Exception flags update. The exception flags in the Data Center have been replaced with user-friendly color-coded cells.
- Flexible report header use. Report headers are now much more flexible and can be tied to individual tests or surveys. You can now define report headers within the Grade or Survey Wizard, allowing you to create and reuse specific report headers that will always be used with that particular test or survey.
- Name builder. A Name Builder has been added to the Read Wizard that when clicked will display a new dialog that can be used to create dynamic image names and paths based on recognized data. You can add fields from your data set to the image base name and to the path statement.
- Package and rename images. An option has been added to the Read Wizard called "Package and rename images". When reading from images, the images will be repacked into a new folder based on your selections. For example, a set of single page PCX files could be repackaged as a multiple page PDF file where each PDF is named based on the respondent’s first and last name (from the data set).
- Allow blanks option. An "Allow Blanks" option has been added to the Template Editor so that you can specify not to flag blank responses for certain questions (e.g., blanks might be okay because a large portion of the respondents will end up skipping this question based on responses to previous question(s)).
- Interface updates. The toolbars and task pane have an updated look and feel. In addition, many open and save windows have directory history listings to help you quickly navigate to file locations, and the recently used file list is now common between the Template Editor and Data Center.
- FTP utility. An FTP utility has been added to the software to allow you to easily move exported files to a server or other application.
- Access/Excel 2007 support. The ability to open and save data to the Access and Excel 2007 formats has been added.
- Native SQL and Oracle support. Remark Office OMR can save data directly to the SQL or Oracle formats without having to go through an ODBC connection.
- Database saving options. When saving to a database where one or more fields are too small to hold the data being saved, Remark Office OMR attempts to resize the database column so that it will hold the data being saved. You have the option to resize the columns or allow the excess data to be truncated.
- Saving stored image file names. When saving data, you can save the stored image file name using the advanced data saving options.
- Automation Wizard enhancements. The Automation Wizard has been updated to include the ability to open data files, launch report batches, apply generic answer keys and utilize configuration files saved through the Advanced options in the Save Data window.
- Grid column tooltips. A balloon tip is displayed over data grid column headers in the Data Center to display pertinent information about the region/question.
- Database lookup automatic reconnection. You can now reconnect a form template to a database if the database is moved after setting up database lookup, eliminating the need to setup the entire connection again.
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