Filling in tiny little bubbles on a scan sheet is as much a part of finals week as sleepless nights and cup after cup of coffee.

But what happens to that bubble sheet after you've breathed a sigh of relief and turned it in?

After students take a test, the instructor or teaching assistant takes the test to the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence (SITE), located at 301 Rider Building II. SITE also maintains a "very secure" drop box in the Sparks Building, said Angela Linse, executive director and associate dean of the Institute.

"They're like mailboxes, so nobody can get into them and take the tests," she said.

After the TA or instructor brings over the scan sheets, they fill out a job request form and tell the SITE staff how they want the exam to be processed.

"They tell us how many forms of the test they gave, what they set the maximum score at, and if they want any extra credit," said Nancy Winter, Supervisor of Student Records.

When the job request form is completed, the scanning begins. Tests are taken to one of two optical scanners located at the Institute. After the tests are scanned, they are processed using computer programs that organize the results.

"The instructor gets a data table that includes the score sheet and how each student answered," Winter said.

The computer programs do an item analysis, which provides information about how many students picked each of the options.

"What [the item analysis] can tell an instructor is the distribution of items for the class -- how many picked A, or B, or C. Over time, this helps instructors write better questions," Winter said.

If an instructor notices students got a lot of the same questions wrong, a test specialist at the SITE could help the instructor rewrite the questions, Linse said.

Linse said the SITE staff has limited contact with the students' test scores.

"We don't do anything with the scores unless the instructor asks us to help interpret the scores," she said.

The exams are usually returned to instructors within 24 hours, Winter said.

"The staff here is very, very committed to getting this information to faculty so they can get it to the students," Linse said.

The number of exams scanned varies over the semester, Linse said.

"A low week is at the beginning of the semester, with less than 100 exams," she said. This translates to about 4,000 to 10,000 individual exam sheets to be scanned, she said.

Linse said during the midterm weeks, weeks four to eight and weeks 10 to 14, SITE receives about 100 to 250 exams, or 10,000 to 35,000 individual sheets per week.

The number of exams scanned roughly doubles during finals week, Linse said. SITE expects to scan about 400 to 500 exams, or 30,000 to 65,000 individual sheets, during finals week, she said.

"Everybody here pulls together during finals week. We make sure we have people at the desks all the time," Linse said.

Winter said despite the large volume of tests handled by SITE, the Institute does not usually experience any major problems.

"Occasionally information is filled out incorrectly, or a form might get bent and the scanner can't read it," Winter said.

Linse said the system does not have a lot of errors because it's been going on for decades.

"All the kinks have been worked out long ago," she said.

In addition to scanning tests, SITE also offers instructor training and assessment. "We're here to help faculty help the students learn. I know that sounds a little weird, but that's our primary mission," Linse said.