Follow the diagram above essentially

• Build your stack. Student's exam first, followed by their extra writing booklets, next student.

• Are you using A3 folded exams? I recommend building the stack from the bottom up for A3 booklets as it is an easier process.

  • Take a student's exam. unfold it with centrefold facing UP.

  • Take their first extra writing booklet, unfold it (centrefold UP) and place it on the stack.

  • next extra writing booklet for that student... unfold, place on top.

  • Next student's exam, unfold it centrefold UP, place it on top

  • repeat until all done

    • What matters: you put the extra writing booklets for student 1 on top of student 1's exam.

    • What doesn't matter: the order in which you arrange student papers in the stack

• If you are doing sequential-sheet A4 exams, I recommend:

  • Student 1's exam place face down on the table (so the first page is in contact with the table)​

  • student 1's first extra writing booklet, place face down on top. repeat until all extra booklets for that student are done

  • Student 2's exam, face down on the stack. repeat until all done

• I recommend making a few stacks for a large cohort - your scanner copier perhaps can't take the whole cohort at once. But if it can, all good! If you split into stacks, don't split in the middle of a student's booklets

• Scan the entire class[es] in one stack (or your substacks) in greyscale, 300 DPI

What you need to know​

• The service automatically splits the stack into individual student PDF file by identifying each "page 1" using feature matching to the first page in your scan. So each student's exam needs to have a virtually identical first page - the cover page with instructions and very little handwritten on it  - except the student name at the top.

• The same applies for the xtra writing booklets. They need to look like proper booklets with the first page having (preferably your school logo) or sufficient visual features that they are recognisable. standard HSC booklets will work fine.

  • If this is NOT the case for you, choose the option "do not unBooklet extra writing booklets". It will return them as one block

• The student name, name and ID number, or ID number only, must be within the top 20% of page 1 (The usual place). The neater students write their details, the better.

• If you upload your student roster (ID, Surname, Given) it will use this to properly name the files, regardless of how or what students write. For instance, if you only have one "Joseph" in your set and he only writes "Joe", it will generally work it out. Any that can't be identified are simply named student_001, etc

• If you do not want to use automatic file naming, leave the student list blank.

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Strongly recommended

• If this is your first time, start with a stack of about 5 students. If that all works fine, then continue with larger stacks

• Have a maximum stack of about 50 students, more than that, make multiple stacks and process each separately - but provide the entire cohort roster for accurate naming (and so you don't have to track which students are in each stack - it will work it out)

• Build your exam with a separate Section 2 (written responses, like the HSC) and ONLY scan this. This is the structure of Learning Forge exams.

• I have found that A3 booklets folded (no staple) is the most reliable to scan and gives fewest paper jams when scanning (which are a PAIN). If you have stapled A4, scissor cut off the staple entirely then fan each booklet to unbind the pages.

• Check your stack before scanning for inverted or stray sheets.

• Students should write their identifying items (name or ID number) neatly and clearly.