11. Optical Mark Reader (OMR)

Have you ever looked closely at the National Lottery ticket selection form? Or have you ever had to do a multiple choice test at school where you had to use a pencil to show your answer (like our picture on the right)?

These forms are scanned by a special piece of equipment called an 'Optical Mark Reader' (OMR). they detect the presence of your pencil mark by reflecting light onto it. Less light is reflected where a mark has been made.

The OMR then interprets the pattern of marks and sends the results to the computer for storage, analysis and reporting.

Advantages

• A fast method of inputting large amounts of data - up to 10,000 forms can be read per hour depending on the quality of the machine used.
• Only one computer needed to collect and process the data
• OMR is much more accurate than data being keyed in by a person

Disadvantages

• If the marks don't fill the space completely, or aren't in a dark enough pencil, they may not be read correctly
• Only suitable for recording one out of a selection of answers, not suitable for text input
• The OMR reader needs the answers to be on the prepared forms which will all be identical to one another. You can't just pick up a blank sheet of paper and mark your answers on it.