Quick Start Guide: Your First Assessment in 10 Minutes

This guide walks you through everything you need to grade your first paper assessment with PaperScorer — from creating a class to viewing your first results. If you’ve never used PaperScorer before, start here.

What you’ll accomplish:

• Create a class and add students
• Create an assessment
• Print answer sheets for your students
• Scan completed sheets and view results

Time required: about 10 minutes (plus class time for students to take the assessment).

Before You Begin

You’ll need:

• An active PaperScorer account (see Creating a PaperScorer Account if you don’t have one yet)
• A printer connected to your computer
• A scanner, smartphone, or any way to digitize completed sheets

Step 1: Create a Class

A class in PaperScorer is a container for your students. You’ll attach assessments to the class in later steps.

1. From the dashboard, click Create New → Class.
2. Enter a Name for your class (e.g. “Period 3 – Algebra”).
3. (Optional) Enter a Section if you teach multiple sections of the same course.
4. Click Save.

For more detail, see Creating a Class.

Step 2: Add Students to Your Class

A new class starts empty. You have a few ways to populate it:

• Add one at a time — see Adding a New Student.
• Bulk import from a CSV — see Bulk Import Students into a Class.
• Import from an LMS — if your school uses Google Classroom, you can import directly. Enterprise customers can also use Canvas, Brightspace, or Clever.

Step 3: Create an Assessment

An assessment is the test, quiz, or worksheet you want PaperScorer to grade.

1. From the dashboard, click Create New → Assessment.
2. Enter a Name (e.g. “Unit 4 Quiz”).
3. Leave Performance Band on the default (you can change it later).
4. Pick an Assessment Template:
   • Blank assessment — start with no questions and add them one at a time.
   • Pre-generated bubble sheet — start with a placeholder set of multiple-choice questions you can edit.
5. Click Save. Add questions on the next screen.

For more detail, see Creating an Assessment and Manage Assessment Questions.

Step 4: Print Answer Sheets

PaperScorer generates printable PDFs that your students will fill out.

1. Open the Classes page, find your class, and use its action menu to select Print Scan Sheets.
2. Pick the assessment you created in Step 3.
3. Choose All Students as the print type.
4. Click Generate Scan Sheets, then click Print Scan Sheets when the PDF is ready.

For complete print guidance, see Printing an Assessment for a Class.

Step 5: Administer the Assessment

Hand the printed sheets to your students and have them fill in their answers. Remind them to:

• Fill bubbles completely and darkly
• Avoid stray marks on the sheet
• Stay inside written response boxes for short-answer questions

See Testing Guidelines for the full student-facing list.

Step 6: Scan and Upload

After the assessment, collect completed sheets and pick a scanning method:

• Document scanner — scan all sheets into a single PDF at 300 DPI grayscale, then go to Upload & Score and drag the PDF in. Fastest for many sheets. See Ideal Scanner Settings.
• Mobile app — install the PaperScorer mobile app and capture sheets with your phone’s camera. Best for small batches or scanning on the go. See Getting Started with the Mobile App.
• Email scanning — attach a PDF to an email and send it to scan@paperscorer.com  from the address on your account. See Scanning via Email.

For a side-by-side comparison, see How Scanning Works: Choosing the Right Method.

Step 7: View Your Results

1. From the dashboard, click Assessments and open the assessment you just created.
2. Use the assessment’s tabs to explore:
   • Students — each student’s score and performance band.
   • Results — class-level overview and analytics.
   • Questions — item analysis showing which questions students struggled with.
   • Responses — the per-student / per-question grid.
3. Click any student’s name to see their individual result and scanned sheet.

For a tour of every report view, see Viewing and Understanding Assessment Results.

What’s Next?

• Testing Guidelines — what to share with students before they start filling out sheets.
• Changing a Question Answer — how to correct a misread or override a score after scanning.
• Student Review Links — share each student’s results with them or their parents.
• Connect to Google Classroom — sync rosters and push grades automatically.

Need Help?

If you run into any issues, email support@paperscorer.com — we typically respond within one business day.