SmartPen: Online System for Automated Grading of Handwritten Answers using Deep Learning
Shirisha Dyavanapally · International Journal for Research in Applied Science and Engineering Technology · 2025
This paper introduces SmartPen, an intelligent, web-based system that automates the evaluation of handwritten answers using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and semantic similarity models. It integrates Tesseract OCR for converting scanned scripts into text and leverages Sentence-BERT for context-aware semantic comparison of student responses with model answers. SmartPen provides educators with an interactive Streamlit-based interface to upload question papers, extract or input model answers, and evaluate student submissions using cosine similarity scoring. The system supports real time evaluation, manual verification of OCR output, and downloadable scoring summaries. Through AI-driven semantic understanding, SmartPen offers an accurate, scalable, and unbiased approach to assessing subjective answer scripts in academic environments.