What it marks

Mark handwritten tests automatically

A handwritten test marker has one job that matters: read what the student wrote, and be honest when it can't. AutoMark marks a scanned class set against your answer key — the mark scheme you'd use by hand — puts the readings it couldn't verify in front of you with the handwriting beside them, and records nothing until you commit.

Class set marking, start to finish

The loop is the same every time, and none of it changes how you run a test.

1. Set the test and the key. Questions, marks, and the answers you'd accept — typed in, pasted from a document, or read off a scan of last year's paper. A question can hold several acceptable answers, because 0.75 and 3/4 are both right.
2. Print the paper from AutoMark. The printed layout and the key are two views of the same test — that is how the marking knows where each answer sits.
3. Scan the class set. The staffroom copier's feeder does it in one pass: pile in, one PDF out. Upload that file, tick the option saying it holds several students' papers, and it's split into one paper per student.
4. The handwriting is read and marked against your key, in the background.
5. Every reading is checked back against the scan. Readings that pass mark straight through; readings that don't are flagged for you.
6. Review, then commit. Committing is when anything reaches a student record.

Both halves, with screenshots: Your first test and Your first marking run.

What handwritten answers it reads

AutoMark is built for structured answers — where there is a right answer and your key says what it is. On the paper that's a word, a number or a short sentence written in a box; a circled letter, a ticked box or a word underlined in a passage; a table filled cell by cell, so partial work still earns marks. Around those sit cloze passages, matching, ordering with partial credit, checklists and diagram labelling — and questions can have parts, each with its own marks.

Two formats have pages of their own: multiple choice without a bubble sheet, and spelling tests, where the word is read letter by letter and never quietly corrected. The full list is on the home page.

Why the scan is the source of truth

Every reading is checked back against the handwriting it came from, and that check passes or it doesn't. There is no dial and no number to interpret — either the reading was verified against the ink, or AutoMark asks you rather than guessing. Software that reports how sure it feels invites you to trust a figure never measured on your paper. A pass-or-fail check says the one useful thing: look at this one.

The review moment

A flagged item is one card: the cropped piece of the real scan, what AutoMark read it as, your key, the mark it would award, whose paper it is. The crop is the truth — if the reading and the ink disagree, the ink wins.

It's keyboard-first, because a class set is a rhythm rather than a task. C confirms, O overrides and asks for a reason you can reuse, A adds a fair answer your key missed and re-marks the run against it, E enlarges the crop. When several students wrote the same thing, their crops fold into one card and one decision; a clean run gets a single bulk confirm. Then a digest of what's about to be written, and only then the commit. You confirm every mark before it's recorded — nothing is written by a solely automated decision.

What makes a scan easy to read

Scan quality is the biggest influence on how much lands in your review queue, and it's under your control: the full page including borders, straight in the feeder, sharp enough to read comfortably on screen, dark enough without greying the paper out. Pen beats faint pencil, and cramped boxes produce cramped handwriting — be generous with answer space in the print preview.

Getting each paper onto the right student

Students write their name where the paper asks for it, and AutoMark matches it against your roster. Confident matches are filled in; anything it can't match is handed to you rather than guessed at, every match stays changeable while the run is open, and you can't commit until every paper has a student. After commit, a reassignment is recorded as your change, not a silent overwrite.

What it won't do

Essays. AutoMark doesn't mark long-form writing, and we'd rather say so than sell a disappointment — judgement about argument and expression isn't what the review queue is for. If your paper ends with one long answer, set it aside as a hand-marked question: the rest marks as usual and you mark that one. It also won't push marks into an LMS — CSV export instead.

What you get afterwards

Every committed run gives a question-by-question view of how the class went — which questions lost marks, and who missed them — and every student carries a record across tests. Any run exports to CSV.

Questions teachers ask

Will it cope with a handwriting-heavy Year 7 class?

Handwriting varies, and so does what a scan shows of it. AutoMark reads what's there and flags what it can't verify, so a messy class set means a longer review queue, not a wrong mark quietly recorded.

Is it a handwritten test marker, an AI grader, or exam marking software?

Teachers type all three, and here they mean the same job. AutoMark is a handwritten test marker: scan the class set, and each answer is read and marked against your key. If you'd call that an AI grader, an auto-grader or exam marking software, this is that — with the difference that anything it can't verify is flagged for review, and the marks are yours before any are recorded.

Do I have to use AutoMark's printed paper?

For a marking run, yes. Build the test however you like, including from a scan of a paper you already have, but hand out the paper AutoMark printed. Edit a test after using it and print fresh papers; committed runs keep the version they were marked against.

What does a run cost?

One credit marks one scanned page, so cost follows pages rather than questions. Pages are estimated against your balance before anything is read, so a run either starts or tells you it can't. Numbers on the pricing page; the rest in the FAQ.

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