Contents - Index

Halts in Scanning


During scanning there are a number of reasons why given questionnaires may cause the process to halt. 

These can be split into three main categories.
  • Failing checks based on the underlying physicality of the response sheet.
  • Failing checks based on marks added to the response sheet during overprinting.
  • Failing checks based on the responses filled in.

    The first two are dealt with in Scanning Problems. Problems of responses filled in (or left blank) are covered in Halt Scan Application Defaults.

    In certain circumstances a questionnaire can fail to scan in such a way as to always forcibly stop scanning (physically jamming in the feed mechanism of the scanner). Usually however an questionnaire failing to scan does not necessarily impinge on those questionnaires following it.

    Questionnaires which cause scanning to halt can be dealt with on an individual basis or in batch mode.

    Dealing with problem questionnaires an individual basis means every time an error occurs a user inspects the questionnaire and decides either to abandon it or to take some action to rectify it. Rectification may be to edit details interactively on screen, to amend the questionnaire physically (rubbing out smudges or properly completing badly filling in marks) or to transcibe the marks to a clean questionnaire and replace the problem one.

    Dealing with problem questionnaires using batch mode scanning means to instruct the Speedquest to scan every questionnaire in one batch and accept data from those validated and reject all others. There are two main circumstances where this works well either there are a very large number of questionnaires and individual integrity is irrelevant (in a survey sample of 6000 losing 200 badly filled in questionnaires may well be within acceptable limits) or rectification is intended to take place at the end of the scanning process (see scanning in batch mode).