Printing of Student Booklets, Questionnaires, and Tracking Forms

Printing preparations begin with the design of the booklet covers, typically in the summer preceding the assessment. This is a collaborative effort involving the NAEP

• item and instruments development staff,
• sampling staff,
• field operations and data collection staff,
• the materials-processing staff, and
• scoring staff.

Since the goal is to design one format for use with all of the documents, necessary data elements to be collected for the various booklets have to be determined and their placement on each cover type agreed upon. The cover design is typically finalized during the September preceding the assessment. In a similar collaboration with the NAEP item and instruments development staff, field operations and data collection staff, materials-processing staff, and scoring staff prepare administration schedules and control documents.

The NAEP item development staff create camera-ready blocks of items for the new testing instruments electronically. These data are sent to the materials and scoring staff on disks, along with a paper version of each block showing the page layout of text and artwork as it should appear in the printed document. Copies are made of the paper version of each block to be used are sent along for review. The materials staff coordinate this review procedure and refer any questions and suggestions to the designated item development staff for resolution. Suggestions for changes to the instruments at this stage are analyzed. If minor, the changes are made by the materials-processing staff in Iowa City. If extensive changes are made by the item developers, a revised version of the entire block is sent on disk to the materials processing center. After a block has passed quality control checking, the camera-ready data are sent to the printing facility in Columbia, Pennsylvania, along with a guide indicating the number of times each block should be repeated in the assessment battery.

Testing instruments that are intended to measure trends across assessment years are reprints of previously created testing instruments. The NAEP printing facility staff either retrieves camera-ready copy or rescans the originals adhered to flat boards (a standard technique used in the 1980s and early 1990s in the printing industry) from the previous assessment, updates the block designator form codes, and places these older cognitive materials in the current NAEP block template.

The actual "building" of booklets begins after all blocks needed for a particular booklet are received and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has given its approval to print. NAEP item development staff supply booklet maps, which specify the order of blocks in each booklet. Using these booklet maps and actual mock-ups of booklets as guides, the printer assembles electronic components into complete booklets. Generally, four weeks elapse between receipt of final copy and delivery of printed booklets. The printer forwards laser proofs (beginning with 2001, these replaced bluelines) to NAEP item development and materials-processing staff for review and approval to print. After the item developers approves the proofs, the materials processing communicates the approval to the printer, along with any changes or corrections that need to be made. As booklets and forms are printed, pallets of documents are received and entered into an inventory control system.

Last updated 12 June 2008 (TS)

Printer-friendly Version