Centralized support for Scantron grading services by Information Technology will end on Dec. 31.
Professors and faculty wanting to continue utilizing the grading format moving forward will have to do so individually.
The orange and white grading sheets are typically found alongside blue and green exam books in various campus locations, such as the Student Union Building’s bookstore. They are primarily used by faculty for grading multiple choice exams.
Chief Information Security Officer Jeff Barrington, who operates under Texas Tech’s IT and the Administrative Support Center, said Tech is not getting rid of Scantrons altogether.
Instead, there will no longer be a centralized system for grading them.
“We’re not actually, technically sunsetting Scantron services,” Barrington said. “They’re just not going to be supported by us.”
Barrington said the decision to end university Scantron support came from the current scanners needing to be updated or replaced soon and the retirement of Mary Villareal, the former Specialist IV who predominantly handled Scantron Services for IT.
Barrington also said IT met with faculty and department heads for the past year, and many of them have elected to use Canvas for grading services after the university fully switched to the platform at the beginning of the Fall semester.
With the end of centralized scanning, Peggy Jones, associate managing director for Desktop, Residence Hall, Executive and Advanced Computing Support Services under IT, said individual professors and departments can continue to use Scantrons if they prefer the paper grading method.
“We honestly don’t know what all of them are choosing. It’s not a one-size-fits-all,” Jones said. “Every professor has a different method. Some are going digital, some want to continue paper-based testing, and they’re looking for what’s going to be best for them.”
If a professor or department does elect to continue relying on Scantrons, Jones said they can choose to purchase their own scanners online. Alternatively, they can choose to operate future grading with digital or hybrid systems, such as RaiderCanvas’s Quizzes or Turnitin’s ExamSoft.
Barrington said the university will continue to offer Scantrons for students to purchase and use. He said Tech abandoning the sheets altogether is unlikely due to their popularity and simplicity as a grading tool.
“I don’t know that we’ll ever completely have no Scantrons on campus,” Barrington said.
Faculty looking to continue using Scantrons will need to purchase a scanner by Dec. 31, when centralized support fully ends.