Frequently Asked Questions

Akindi has bubble sheets for 50 and 100 question multiple choice (A through E or A through E and F through K) questions with single or multi-bubble answers, and grades them right / wrong with variable weights for each question. Here are some example bubble sheets:

• Example 50 question bubble sheet
• Example 50 question bubble sheet with A..E/F..K bubbles
• Example 100 question bubble sheet
• Example 100 question bubble sheet with A..E/F..K bubbles

We'll guide you through that process once you click the 'Create Assessment' button in the top right corner of the screen. You will be asked to:

1. Choose a course and enter an assessment name
2. Choose and print a bubble sheet template for your assessment

Fill out one of the bubble sheets with the answer key and bubble in the student ID 0000 to indicate that. Add the answer key to the completed answer sheets and scan them into a single PDF file (or multiple files depending on class size). Upload the PDF file to Akindi and we'll instantaneously process and grade your assessment. For a class of 30 students, processing shouldn't take longer than 1 minute. Your results are ready to review and export.

Ready to get started? Sign up and create an assessment now!

Yes you can, however, you wouldn't be able to scan that same file using email uploading. You will need to upload the scanned sheets through your dashboard and ensure the 'Force upload' option is checked.

You can customize the text in the header of bubble sheet templates. We also offer fully customized bubble sheets for a fee. If you don't see a template you need available in the list of current templates let us know. We continuously add new templates based on your feedback.

At the moment we don't support multiple versions of an assessment. However, a current workaround is to create a different assessment for each version. We will have an update once we release multi-version support.

You can use any scanner with an automatic document feeder to scan your answer sheets.

No. At the moment we don't support PDFs created with phone cameras or other non-flatbed scanners.

Akindi is versatile and accepts the default settings on all common scanners. If you are scanning large batches of responses, though, you may find it helpful to reduce the size of the PDF files by scanning in grey scale at a resolution of 100 DPI.

Most importantly, though, all four black corner squares must be clearly visible in the scanned PDF, and the QR code must not be damaged.

Yes you can. Make sure that the first PDF file contains the answer key.

Bubble in the student ID 0000.

No. We only support 1 answer key per assessment at the moment. Stay tuned for an update on this.

There are several reasons why Akindi might have trouble recognizing your scanned sheets.

1. The 4 corner squares on the answer sheets aren't visible in your scanned file.
2. The QR code has been tampered with by the student or its not visible in the scan.
3. Your scanner could have distorted the image scanned because of a paper feed malfunction. Check the scanned PDF to see if that is the case, and rescan if necessary.

If you've already uploaded an assessment, go to the results table and you'll find a top row with your answer key. You can click on the table to make the necessary changes. Make sure to click "Save Changes" to save your changes once you're done.

Click the 'Options' menu on the right side of the assessment's results page and choose one of the export to CSV options.

At the moment we don't have provide an easy way to do that. You'll need to take a screen shot of the graph or just print the whole page.

Please use the chat button in the bottom right corner of this page to let us know if this is a feature that you would find useful!

Yes! Click the 'Options' menu on the top right side of the assessment's result page, then sheets you can email or print and hand out to your students.

Akindi uses the point-biserial correlation coefficient (r_pb) to calculate a discriminatory score for each question in your assessment, and for your assessment as a whole.

The discriminatory score shows the correlation between correctly answering each question and performing well on the assessment as a whole; in other words, it shows how well each question discriminates between students who did well on the assessment and students who did poorly.

Akindi considers questions with a discriminatory score above 0.20 to be well-constructed: high-performing students generally answer them correctly, and low-performing students generally answer them incorrectly. Give yourself a pat on the back for these questions: they are probably doing a good job of accurately assessing your students.

Questions with a discriminatory score between 0.00 and 0.20 are considered candidates for improvement: high and low performing students answer correctly with approximately the same frequency. It might be worth double checking these questions to see whether they could be clarified, or ambiguity could be removed.

Questions with a discriminatory score below 0.00 are considered problematic: the highest performing students are getting them wrong and the lowest performing students are getting them right! It is definitely worth reviewing these questions to see if they can be clarified, or (more frequently) the answer key was entered incorrectly (Akindi will even tell you which of the "incorrect" answers were chosen most frequently).

The assessment's overall discriminatory score is the average score of the questions in the assignment, excluding questions with a weight of 0.

When calculating the discriminatory score, questions weights are not considered except for zero-weighted questions which are not considered when calculating the overall assessment discriminatory score. More specifically, the per-question r_pb is calculated with respect to each student's overall test score assuming each question has a weight of either 0 (if the question's actual weight is 0) or 1 (if the question's actual weight is non-zero). The overall score is the arithmetic mean of the per-question score, excluding questions with a weight of zero.

To import a class roster, go to the course page and click the 'Class Roster' tab. You can upload a CSV of the class roster by clicking the 'Import Roster' button. You will be guided through formatting your roster and be given a preview of the changes that will be made. You can also copy/paste the roster directly into the table just like a spreadsheet.

You can create an assessment and scan responses without a roster. Akindi will automatically add the student IDs from the bubble sheets to your class roster, albeit without associated names. Importing a roster helps you add names to the student IDs.

Akindi uses student ID numbers as the unique identifier for student records. If your students don't have student IDs assigned by your school you should assign each student a number that is unique to them across all of your courses, and use pre-filled bubble sheets with their name and ID included to avoid mis-bubbled IDs.

We recommend assigning students IDs which are a combination of the school year, semester, and period or course number to make sure they are unique. For example, students in a first period (01) course in the second semester (02) of 2015 (15) might be assigned the IDs 15020101 through 15020135.

Akindi assumes each student ID is unique across all courses. If you use ID 21 for two different students in two different courses, Akindi will use one of those names for all students with ID 21.

We recommend assigning students IDs which are a combination of the school year, semester, and period or course number to make sure they are unique. For example, students in a first period (01) course in the second semester (02) of 2015 (15) might be assigned the IDs 15020101 through 15020135.

We'd love to hear from you! Send us a message using the chat in the bottom right, or email us at support@akindi.com.