sqa digital question papers learner’s guide adobe reader 9

SQA Digital Question Papers

Learner’s Guide

Adobe Reader 9 / X / XI

August 2014 Installation and set up ............................................................................................................ 2

1. Obtain and install Adobe Reader 9 or X / 10 ................................................................ 2 2. Start Adobe Reader ................................................................................................... 2 3. Set up the toolbar ..................................................................................................... 2 4. Set up reading .......................................................................................................... 2 5. Adjust Screen colours ................................................................................................ 3 6. Smooth text on screen display .................................................................................... 3 7. Spellchecker .............................................................................................................. 3 8. Set up auto-save ....................................................................................................... 3 9. Testing ..................................................................................................................... 3

Using Digital Papers ................................................................................................................ 4

1. Getting Started .......................................................................................................... 4 2. Enter text in answer boxes ......................................................................................... 4 3. Tick boxes ................................................................................................................ 4 4. Highlight the answer boxes ........................................................................................ 4 5. Changing the View .................................................................................................... 4 6. Moving between pages .............................................................................................. 5 7. Navigating around pages ............................................................................................ 5 8. Page Rotation ........................................................................................................... 5 9. Spell checker ............................................................................................................. 5 10. Viewing ‘Reading’ and ‘Question’ papers together ......................................................... 5 11. Digital Answer Booklets .............................................................................................. 6 12. Multiple choice questions ........................................................................................... 6 13. Equations, maths and scientific symbols ...................................................................... 6 14. Saving and printing .................................................................................................... 7

Drawings, comments and markup tools .................................................................................... 8

1. Drawing tools ............................................................................................................ 8 2. Highlights ................................................................................................................. 8 3. Text Boxes ................................................................................................................ 9 4. Notes ....................................................................................................................... 9

Reading the paper with text-to-speech ................................................................................... 10

1. Read Out Loud ........................................................................................................ 10 2. Computer Voices ..................................................................................................... 10 3. Text to speech programs for reading Digital Papers .................................................... 11

Digital Question Papers User Guide August 2014

Installation and set up

1. Obtain and install Adobe Reader 9, X or XI

You need Adobe Reader to open the digital papers and type in answers. We recommend the latest version Adobe Reader XI.

• Adobe Reader XI can be downloaded from http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/

When you install Reader you may be asked if you want it to update itself automatically: say no – you don’t want Reader to update itself in the middle of an exam.

2. Start Adobe Reader

• Load Adobe Reader.

3. Set up the toolbar

Not all the tools are going to be needed, so it makes sense to turn off the ones that aren't going to be used. They can be added again when required.

• If you see the How To window on the right side of the screen, uncheck the Show How To Window at Startup to turn this off.

• Right-click on the grey toolbar at the top of the screen and select Reset Toolbars.

• Reader 9: go to Tools > Customise Toolbars, scroll down until you find the Select

and Zoom Toolbar and tick the Select Tool . You may need the Select Tool if you use the drawing and commenting features (see later). Make sure that the Hand Tool is also ticked. The position of toolbars displayed on screen can be altered by clicking on the grey lined area and moving it to the desired position.

• Reader X/XI: right-click again on the grey toolbar and in Select & Zoom, choose the Select Tool and then the Hand Tool.

4. Set up reading

• Click on Edit > Preferences and click on Reading:

• Set the Reading Order to Infer reading order from document (recommended).

• In Screen Reader Options, for Pages vs Documents, choose to Only read the current visible pages.

• In Read Out Loud Options, deselect Use default voice and choose a voice from the menu. Deselect Use default speech attributes and choose the pitch and speed you prefer for the voice.

CALL Scotland August 2014

http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/


5. Adjust Screen colours

You may find the paper easier to read if you change the paper background or text colour.

• Click Edit > Preferences > Accessibility, then Replace Document Colors. Tick Custom Color and choose the desired text and background colour. Tick Only change the colour of black text and line art and Change the color of line art otherwise some information may not be visible.

• If the computer has been set up with a specified colour scheme already, you could tick Use Windows Color Scheme although this can sometimes be unreliable. You may need to set the document colours within Custom Colour settings or you could try out the High Contrast options.

• To change the highlight colour for the answer boxes, click Edit > Preferences > Forms and choose a colour for the Fields highlight color.

6. Smooth text on screen display

• Click Edit > Preferences > Page Display and set Smooth Text to be For Monitor (if you have a CRT monitors) or For laptop/LCD screens (if you have a laptop or a flat panel screen). This will improve the clarity of the text displayed on screen.

7. Spellchecker

SQA supply you with two versions of each digital paper: one with spellcheck enabled, and one with spellcheck disabled. The different files are identified with SpellCheck on or SpellCheck off in the file name. Before using the spellchecker, set the options and dictionaries:

• Go to Edit > Preferences > Spelling and set Check spelling while typing on. You may choose an alternate underline colour if you wish, particularly if you have altered the Adobe Reader page and text colours.

• Choose the correct spelling dictionary, go to Edit > Preferences > Spelling, select English (UK) and then click Check. Uncheck the others if not needed.

• If you choose a foreign language dictionary as well as English UK, ensure that English (UK) is at the top of the list by clicking on the Up button.

8. Set up auto-save

• Click Edit > Preferences and then Documents. Under Save Settings, select Automatically save document changes to temporary file every and then type in the time you want to have between saves. The default is to save every 5 minutes.

9. Testing

Before letting any student use the system it is vital that you are familiar with its operation.

Test the paper before the student starts! Work on a copy of the paper and: make sure you don’t insert any answers into the one you are going to give to the students!



Using Digital Papers

1. Getting Started

• Open the paper(s) you want to access.

• When you open a paper, if Adobe Reader asks you if you want to set the reading order of the paper, choose to Infer Reading Order from the Document and tick so that it won’t ask you again.

• Immediately save the paper and re-name the file with your name or initials.

• Save as you work through the exam. Before printing do a last File > Save (Ctrl-S).

2. Enter text in answer boxes

• Click in an answer box and type your answer.

• Press the TAB key to move to the next answer box, or click on the next box with the mouse, and type in the details.

• Press SHIFT-TAB to move back a field

• Always check that the TAB key has taken you to the correct place on the paper.

3. Tick boxes

• Answer ‘tick box’ questions by clicking on the box, or, if you have tabbed to the box, press the Enter key. If you change your mind, click again to remove the tick.

4. Highlight the answer boxes

• If you want the answer boxes to be highlighted click on the Highlight Fields button at the top right of the paper (the answer boxes are called ‘Fields’). (Note you can change the highlight colour of the boxes in Edit > Preferences > Forms.)

5. Changing the View

• Use the zoom buttons if you need to zoom in on the paper.

• To fill the screen use page width or press CTRL+2.

• See the whole page use fit page or press CTRL+0.

• Choose View > Page Display > Single Page (not ‘continuous’) to see a page at a time. Or try Two Up/Two Page View to see two pages at a time.

• To get back to 100% click on the arrow to the right of the magnification level and choose Actual Size



6. Moving between pages

• To get to the top of each page, use the arrows on the toolbar , or right and left arrow keys on the keyboard.

• To scroll up or down the page:

o use the scroll bar;

o press the Space bar to move down a screen at a time;

o press the page up/down keys (you need to click outside any answer box for this to work).

7. Navigating around pages

• Click on the Page View icon at the left side of the page to see thumbnails of each page (or click View > Navigation Panels > Pages, or press F4 and click the Page View icon). This can be useful to help you go quickly to a particular page in the document.

8. Page Rotation

• If you have diagrams or graphics on the page you may need to rotate pages: select View > Rotate View then either Clockwise or Counterclockwise.

9. Spell checker

• If the spellchecker is enabled for the paper, Adobe Reader will underline possible spelling mistakes when you type them into the answer boxes.

• You can spellcheck a word by right-clicking on it and choosing from the list of suggested words.

• Or at any time you can press F7, click on Start and use the Spellchecker dialogue box.

• If you use the spellchecker, make sure the correct dictionary (English United Kingdom) is selected (go to Edit > Preferences > Spelling).

10. Viewing ‘Reading’ and ‘Question’ papers together

• Open both papers

• Move between them by clicking the Window menu and then choose the paper, or press ALT W then 1 or 2



• OR click Window>Cascade and then size and position the files as you wish,

• OR choose Window > Tile and arrange the papers either vertically or horizontally.

11. Digital Answer Booklets

• Digital SQA ‘question and answer’ papers have the red answer boxes into which you can type your answers, but ‘question-only’ papers, such as History or Modern Studies papers, and most Higher papers do not have answer boxes.

• To answer these ‘question only’ papers, candidates can use a digital version of the answer booklet. You can download answer booklets in either Word or PDF from SQA’s web site at http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/30030.1259.html. There are two versions of the PDF answer booklets: one with the Adobe Reader spellchecker enabled (for candidates who have permission to use a spellchecker) and one without (for candidates who don’t).

• If you use the Word answer booklets, open the paper in Adobe Reader and your word processor, and swap between them by clicking on the Windows Taskbar, or pressing ALT-TAB.

• Note you can use the Select Text button to copy questions or quotations from the PDF and paste them into the word processor.

12. Multiple choice questions

Many of the papers have 'tick boxes' where you just click with the mouse to choose your answer but some papers require you to underline the correct answer on the paper using a pen or pencil. If you are using a digital paper you have two options:

• you can mark your answers in pencil on the paper copy that SQA provided with your digital paper;

• you can use the Adobe Reader Comment and Markup tools (see below) to mark your answer on the digital paper.

13. Equations, maths and scientific symbols

• The answer boxes in the PDF papers only accept plain text so you cannot type in equations or symbols. You can copy and paste symbols into the answer boxes from the Windows Character Map or from a sheet of symbols that you can download from the CALL web site (http://www.adapteddigitalexams.org.uk/FAQs/).

• To use the Character Map, click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map. Find the symbol you want, click Select, then Copy and then go to


http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/30030.1259.html

http://www.adapteddigitalexams.org.uk/FAQs/


the digital paper and paste it into the answer box. (Thanks to David Imrie from Ashcraig School for this tip.)

• This is slow and so you are probably better off handwriting your equations if you can, or using a word processor with an equation editor. Microsoft Word and Open Writer both have free built-in equation editors but we prefer Efofex FX Equation (http://www.efofex.com/) which is very easy to use and free licences are offered for pupils with disabilities.

14. Measuring Dimensions on a Digital Paper

• Go to Edit > Preferences > Units and set the units (mm, cm, inches)

To view the Analysis Toolbar:

• Reader 9: Tools>Analysis>Show Analysis Toolbar.

• Reader X: View>Tools>Analyze. The Analyze Tools will appear in the Tools to the right of the page.

To measure using the Ruler,

• click on the yellow Ruler button,

• click on the start and finish of the element you want to measure.

• Move the mouse and then click a third time to set where you want the actual measurement indication to be shown.

To stop measuring, press the Esc key on the keyboard.

15. Saving and printing

• Go to File>Print (Ctrl-P), under ‘Comments and Forms:’ choose ‘Document and Markups’, and then click OK.

• MAKE SURE YOU SET “DOCUMENT AND MARKUPS” OTHERWISE IT WILL NOT PRINT YOUR ANSWERS!


http://www.efofex.com/


Drawings, comments and markup tools

As you read through a paper, you can add Highlights and Notes. You can also use drawing tools to add diagrams and graphs - although many students will find it faster and easier to use a pencil on the hard copy of the paper.

Reader 9: click View>Toolbars>Comment and Markup to show the Commenting Toolbar.

The Toolbar can either ‘float’ on top of the exam, so you can move it around, or you can drag it to the top of the page and it will ‘dock’ with the other toolbars.

Reader X/XI: click Comment > Drawing Markups on the toolbar, or View > Comment > Annotations or Drawing Markups.

Annotations let you highlight text, type text and record voice comments; mark-ups are for drawings and text boxes.

The Reader X/XI tools sit at the right hand side of the screen.

1. Text Comments

Click on the Text Comment tool , then click on the page and type. A toolbar will appear that lets you change the font, size and colour.

2. Highlights

Highlights can be used to mark key locations or sections of the text.

• Click on the Highlight button , and then select the text to be highlighted.

• To delete the highlight, right-click on the highlight and choose Delete.

3. Drawing tools

To draw a line on the paper, click on the Line tool, then click on the place where you want the line to start and end.

• The default line colour is red, which is good for viewing on screen but can be faint when printed out, so right-click on the line you have drawn, choose Properties and then choose a different, darker line colour that will be clearer when printed out on a black and white printer. Click OK.



• Now right-click on the line again, and choose Make Current Properties Defaults so that the lines you draw from now on will all be a darker colour.

• To stop drawing lines press the ESC key or click on the Select Tool in the toolbar.

• For drawing use the Cloud, Arrow, Line, Rectangle (press the Shift key down to draw a square), Ellipse (hold Shift to draw a circle) and Pencil tools. Click on the tool you need, and then click on the page to draw or insert the item.

• You can change the appearance of an item – for example, the colour of the text, the thickness of a line, or the fill colour of a shape, by right-clicking on the item, and choosing Properties.

• For this Biology paper, the Rectangle tool was used to draw the bars on the chart.

4. Text Boxes and Callouts

You can use the Callout and TextBox tools to add comments, numbers or text to diagrams. For example, you may want to label a diagram or add a comment, or extend one of your answers.

5. Notes

You can use Notes to collect ideas and text as you read through a paper.

• To add a note, either click on the Note Tool , or right-click where you want the Note, and choose Add Note. (This will only work outside the answer boxes.)

• Reader X/XI lists your notes and comments on the right hand side below the tools.

• To see your notes with Reader 9, click on Document>Comments>Show Comments List or clicking on the Show>Show Comments List on the toolbar.

• You can then review the notes and copy the text in them into another application, such as Word, for creating your answers.



Reading the paper with text-to-speech

To have the digital paper read out to you by the computer you need:

• a ’text-to-speech’ program and

• computer voices, installed on your computer.

Adobe Reader has free built-in text-to-speech called Read Out Loud, but it has some limitations and so we recommend you also consider obtaining the programs listed in the table on the next page.

1. Read Out Loud

• Read Out Loud can read using most voices installed on your computer. Before you use it, choose your voice: click on Edit > Preferences > Reading.

• Untick Use default voice, and choose a voice from the list.

• Tick Read form fields. • Now click View > Read Out Loud and then

Activate Read Out Loud. • Click Tools > Select and Zoom > Select Tool

. • Now click on some text and it will read out that chunk of text – usually the paragraph. The

limitations of Read Out Loud are: o you can’t select the exact text that you want to read; o sometimes it doesn’t read text at all and just says ‘blank’; o it doesn’t highlight the words as it reads.

• You can have the page or the whole document read out (View > Read Out Loud > Read This Page only or Read to End of Document). You may find that it reads out the text on the page in a strange order, which is why the click and read method above is better for most candidates.

2. Computer Voices

Your computer will probably have some voices on it already, and Scottish schools can get ‘Stuart’ and ‘Heather’, which are high quality voices with Scottish accents, free of charge from http://www.thescottishvoice.org.uk. The paid-for programs (see below) come with extra voices, and you can buy more voices from several suppliers:

• CereProc (http://www.cereproc.com/), the developers of Heather and Stuart sell high quality British English and other language voices.

• iVona (http://www.ivona.com/) have some very good voices in a range of languages.

• NextUp (http://www.nextup.com/) is another good source of voices in many languages.


http://www.thescottishvoice.org.uk/

http://www.cereproc.com/

http://www.ivona.com/

http://www.nextup.com/


3. Text to speech programs for reading Digital Papers

These programs can all read the text from digital papers in Adobe Reader.

Program Description Cost

Read Out Loud Free text-to-speech built into Adobe Reader. Basic functionality. Free

Ivona MiniReader

Ivona MiniReader is a simple text reader from http://www.ivona.com/en/mini-reader/ which adds a floating toolbar on the screen. MiniReader reads text from any program – Adobe Reader, Word, internet etc.

See http://www.adapteddigitalexams.org.uk/Using-Digital-Papers/Reading-with-Text-to-Speech/Ivona-MiniReader/ for instructions on how to download and install it.

Select the text then click on a 'Play' button (or press CTR+SHIFT+SPACE), and MiniReader will read it out. It is not quite as easy to use as PDFaloud because you have to select the text rather than just clicking and it doesn’t highlight the text as it reads, but it is reliable and free and it works with the Scottish voices. There is a paid-for version which has more features.

Free

NaturalReader Free NaturalReader is a simple text reader similar to MiniReader, from http://www.naturalreaders.com/. You select the text then click on a 'Speak' button (or press CTR+F9), and it reads it out. There is also a paid-for version which has more features.

Free

Read and Write Gold

Read and Write Gold can read from almost any application - word processors, internet browsers and it has PDFaloud 'built-in'. It also has lots of other tools to support reading, study and writing such as screen masking, talking spellchecker, word prediction, homonym checker, dictionary, speech recognition, scanning and OCR, highlighters and study tools.

SQA policy restricts the use of spellcheckers, word prediction and other linguistic support tools and so if the candidate is not allowed them, they must be turned off. Read and Write Gold has a ‘Teacher’s Toolkit’ which can be used to configure the facilities available to the students.

Several Scottish local authorities have authority-wide licences for Read and Write Gold.

Read and Write Gold is £320 for a single user licence, £1,150 for a primary site and £1,995 for a secondary site. TextHelp offer to upgrade a secondary PDFaloud site licence to Read and Write Gold version 10 for £1,350. Read and Write Gold can be installed or run direct from a USB stick. http://www.texthelp.com/UK

Single user £320. Secondary site licence £1995

ClaroRead SE / Standard / Plus / Pro

Like Read and Write Gold, ClaroRead comes with extra voices and can read from anything including for example Microsoft Word and internet browsers.

ClaroRead Standard, Plus and Pro have extra tools such as word

Single user from £49 (SE).

Site


http://www.ivona.com/en/mini-reader/

http://www.adapteddigitalexams.org.uk/Using-Digital-Papers/Reading-with-Text-to-Speech/Ivona-MiniReader/

http://www.adapteddigitalexams.org.uk/Using-Digital-Papers/Reading-with-Text-to-Speech/Ivona-MiniReader/

http://www.naturalreaders.com/

http://www.texthelp.com/UK


prediction, spellchecking and scanning. However, there is no way to turn these off so the student can’t access them in the exam, so these versions are less suitable for candidates who need text-to-speech only.

ClaroRead can highlight the text as it reads it in Adobe Reader, although we do not think it is quite as controllable as PDFaloud.

ClaroRead costs from £49 for a single user licence and various site licence options are available, e.g. £795 for up to 250 students, £1,050 for up to 1,000 students. ClaroRead can be installed or run direct from a USB stick. http://www.clarosoftware.com

licences available.

Penfriend XL Penfriend is primarily a word predictor but it also has text-to-speech which can be used to read from any application. Penfriend XL comes with high quality British and foreign voices. Penfriend XL can either read text under the mouse, or it can read and highlight text copied to the clipboard. It is not possible to prevent access to the word predictor in the exam, although the word predictor could be set to use an empty dictionary so it does not actually predict words. http://www.penfriend.biz/

£90 single licence; £22 extra licences from Education Scotland

Co:Writer 6 Like Penfriend, Co:Writer’s main feature is word prediction, but it also has a text-to-speech facility. The reader selects the text and then clicks a Speak button to have it read out. There is no highlighting as it reads.

It is possible to turn off some of Co:Writer’s prediction features in assessments but you cannot turn off prediction completely other than by selecting an empty prediction dictionary. http://www.donjohnston.com/

£39 single licence + £18 for CD from Education Scotland

WordQ + SpeakQ

WordQ + SpeakQ provides word prediction, speech recognition and text-to-speech. You select the text and then click the Read button to hear the text. There is no highlighting as it reads. Again, the only way to stop word prediction being used is to load an empty dictionary.

http://www.goqsoftware.com/uk/

£199 single user.

Site licences available


http://www.clarosoftware.com/

http://www.penfriend.biz/

http://www.donjohnston.com/

http://www.goqsoftware.com/uk/