Optical/Intelligent Character Recognition (OCR/ICR)
Optical and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) again uses paper-based forms, which allows responders to enter hand printed text such as names, addresses , dates etc, as well as OMR marks with no special equipment needed or utilised other than a pen/pencil. An Image scanner (with an automatic feeder) processes the forms, which are sent through a recognition and verification process and are then stored in the required project database. Speeds depend on the amount and complexity of the handprint data (alphanumeric being the most error prone and therefore the slowest to process) but are normally in the range of five to twenty faster than manual entry.