
Accuracy of answer sheet evaluation process is directly linked with the reliability; it impacts to personalized feedbacks, quality aspect of evaluation.
Assessment plays a critical role in the overall development and the learning experience of the students, while most of us focus on the assessment part, the evaluation parts remains unnoticed and thus is an underrated process.
Institutes can significantly improve the overall quality of the education by improving the answer sheet evaluation process.
Accuracy are traceability are two pillars of a reliable process, considering the same; the top educational institutions are now taking steps ahead to make the academic processes more accurate and traceable.
Digital answer sheet evaluation systems can help institutes to streamline the moderation process in a more accurate way.
This article discusses three ways to improve the moderation process with a digital answer sheet evaluation system.
Article Contents
Introduction
While most academic processes are now being streamlined digitally, answer sheet evaluation still follows the conventional approach.
The conventional answer sheet evaluation process lacks accuracy and traceability; in turn, this makes the evaluation process less reliable. As with other academic processes, the answer sheet evaluation can also be streamlined digitally.
What are the advantages of a digital answer sheet evaluation system?
The advantages of digital answer sheet evaluation are many, the digital systems are more efficient, faster, accurate, and traceable.
Data visualization, systematic answer sheet distribution to moderators and interpretation features are few other major reasons that contribute to the popularity of digital answer sheet evaluation systems.

How to improve the moderation process?
The moderation process can be improved by following three proven methods
- Streamline the process of distributing the answer sheets to the evaluator
- Make the evaluation and moderation process traceable
- Two-way communication between moderator and evaluator
1) Streamline the process of distributing the answer sheets to the moderator

Currently, the majority of institutes follow the conventional way of evaluation; these institutes rely on two checkpoints for paper checking, one is the evaluator, and another is the moderator. These moderators act as a second checkpoint for verifying the accuracy of marks awarded by the evaluator.
Not all the answer sheets are forwarded to the moderator for evaluation, the institutes randomly choose the answer sheets in a pre-defined proportion (for example, 10 out 100 answer sheets are chosen randomly and sent for evaluation to the moderator). This is a time consuming process and does not represent a correct model for moderation.
How can the Digital Answer Sheet Evaluation System help distribute the answer sheets to the moderators?
As mentioned, the systematic distribution of the answer sheets to the moderator is a simple yet impactful feature of the digital evaluation system. With the digital answer sheet evaluation system, the answer sheet distribution can be streamlined more accurately and systemically, ensuring that the samples sent to the moderator are true representatives of the population (an exhaustive set of answer sheets).
It is always accepted that Judgment/stratified sampling can help in better sampling as compared to random sampling, which is followed in the conventional answer sheet distribution process.
To implement the judgment sampling with a digital answer sheet evaluation system, you need to define certain rules; let us understand the process with this tutorial
The interface of answer sheet evaluation system is simple and intuitive, the moderators can follow these simple steps-
- Visit the digital answer sheet evaluation system webpage and select your role as a moderator
- All the exams which are assigned to you will be visible, select the exam and proceed for moderation
- As soon the exam is selected and you proceed for moderation, the very first step is to mark the blank pages; marking the blank pages makes the process more accurate and reliable; this avoids any possibility of skipping the answers provided by the student
- The system doesn’t let the moderator complete the answer sheet checking process until all the pages of the answer sheet are visited and marked by the moderator.
- Once the moderator visits all the answer sheet pages and clicks on the finish answer checking button, the status of the exam in the dashboard gets updated as “re-check answer sheet”
2) Make the evaluation and moderation process traceable
Traceability is one of the key aspects of making the process streamlined, the same applies to the moderation process. The conventional process of moderation does not provide any traceability about the real-time status of moderation activity completion.
Digital evaluation systems come up with power-packed features to make the moderation process more traceable, the admin can also define the deadline for completion of the moderation process. The dashboard gives insights into the overall progress of the moderation process with a single click. This, in turn helps the institute to expedite the process and meet the result publication deadlines.

3) Efficient Analysis of Evaluation for moderator and evaluator
The evaluation process does not end with finishing the paper checking, it essentially involves the feedback process as well.
The evaluator/ moderator gains insights into students’ progress; they understand where the students are doing good and where they are lacking.
Digital evaluation systems support the student-specific comments and make the communication between evaluators and moderators. Here is how-
i) While checking the answer sheet, the evaluator can provide comments on answers provided by the students
ii) These answer sheets are systematically distributed to the moderators
iii) Moderators check each of the assigned answer sheets and provide feedback wherever necessary
iii) The marks and remarks of both; the evaluator and moderator get captured in the digital evaluation system
A better moderation process can surely help the institutes to improve the quality of the overall exam process and the results; this not only enables the evaluators to check the paper more precisely but also makes it possible to complete the evaluation and moderation activity at a faster pace.
Moderation is the process of verifying the marks awarded by the evaluator. After the answer sheets are corrected by the evaluator, the answer sheets are handed over to the moderator. Moderator makes sure that the evaluator is correctly awarding the marks.
The moderation process is implemented as a second checkpoint for evaluation, moderation process is intended to control and improve the overall quality of the answer sheet checking process
No doubt that the processes which are supervised/monitored are more reliable and accurate; the same applies to the answer sheet evaluation process; when the answer sheet evaluation is monitored and controlled by the moderator, the process becomes more reliable.
It is widely followed that a few answer sheets from each sets are sent to the moderator; the answer sheets are generally referred to as a “Sample”.
Conventionally, Random sampling is followed for selecting the answer sheets to be sent for the moderation. Few of the answer sheets in a pre-defined proportion are selected and sent for moderation. Although; random sampling is reliable as every answer sheet has an equal chance of getting selected for moderation, it is not the right approach. Stratified/judgemental sampling can serve the purpose better. These sampling techniques can help institutes to make the answer sheet distribution to the moderators a better and more organized process.
Digital answer sheet checking is more organized, reliable, and faster than conventional pen and paper-based processes. Digital answer sheet evaluation makes it possible to track the answer sheet checking progress in real-time and makes it possible to streamline the moderation process more efficient way.
No prior knowledge or technical competency is required for using the digital answer sheet evaluation tool. The technical support and training is provided to all the users to enable them to use the tool efficiently. Additional help resources including help documents are help videos are also prpvided.