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Founded more than 150 years ago, Cambridge Assessment is the brand name for the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, a department of the University of Cambridge. Cambridge Assessment operates and manages three exam boards: Cambridge English Language Assessment, Cambridge International Examinations and OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA). It has a 228,000 square foot print and operations centre which has 9 km of shelving and employs 180 permanent staff and up to 250 flexible workers.

A key aim of the project is to reduce the time it takes to make scripts available to examiners for marking. It will also provide Cambridge Assessment the ability to introduce new initiatives to enhance the whole exam setting process such as improved analytics. In 2014, 34.3 million question papers were dispatched to 173 countries along with 36.3 million examination items such as labels and plastic sacks.

Working with Kodak Alaris, Cambridge Assessment initially purchased two ibml 5375 high performance production scanners, each able to process over 300 pages per minute along with ibml SoftTrac capture software. A third ibml scanner was added in July 2015 to boost processing capacity.

Throughput like this is crucial given the scale of the operation. The exam group expects to process around 110 million images this academic year using a combination of in-house and outsourced scanning. On site, Cambridge Assessment created 10 million images with the planned volume expected to rise to 30 million images next academic year.

Cambridge Assessment operates and manages the whole exam supply chain. This covers everything from creating the exam qualifications, generating the exam papers, then printing and distributing them along with all the required materials to administer exams. After exams are held, scripts are returned for marking, with results and ultimately certificates provided to candidates. Last year, it posted 8 million of them, such is the international popularity and value of its qualifications.

POST-EXAM PROCESSING IS KEY
Since October 2007, Cambridge Assessment has moved away from physically sending out paper-based exam scripts to examiners for marking. Like other exam bodies, it is using an Electronic Script Management solution to automate the process to make it easier to allocate work to examiners whilst improving speed and security. Cambridge Assessment partners with RM Results, who have previously worked with third party document management outsourcers to manage the complex job of script scanning and indexing. Cambridge Assessment has been fully integrated with this process and now operates alongside RM Results and the wider supply chain.

The system at Cambridge Assessment stores data in an EDMS from Documentum which interfaces with RM's with secure online marking system called RM Assessor. This is then used to display scanned images of scripts for examiners locally on their computers.

Ian Duffield, Cambridge Assessment Assistant Director for Group Distribution, explains, "Originally, we took the view to stick to our core competencies - we're an assessment organisation not a scanning operation. However, given scanning and associated services are so integral to us, it was logical that the business would ultimately look at it given the potential to improve script processing time. We're adopting a dual sourcing approach - working with existing partners and now in-house."

REDUCING THE 'LEAD OUT' WINDOW
By outsourcing answer sheets for scanning, there can be a delay sending packets to bureau partners. Cambridge Assessment wanted to reduce the so-called 'lead out' time - the window for exams to be collated, marked and results then provided - as customers, particularly those internationally, want this faster.

Ian Duffield explains, "This year, for example, we offered our first exam series in March for India. Tests were taken in March and results needed to be available by May or sooner as this is when University entry deadlines are. By bringing some of the scanning in-house, we've been able to shave off time which improves our post-exam turnaround performance and will ultimately help learners to meet admission deadlines."

In addition, in-house scanning will help to share a selection of answer papers among examiners earlier so they can standardise marking. For four months of each year exam traffic volumes are huge, given the May/June and November/December exam seasons of southern and northern hemisphere countries.

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