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If you google "optical mark reader", you will get almost 6,000 hits. It is a term for bar code scanners, two sided scannners and pencil mark scanners whatever you need.

Legacy OMR was for detecting the presence or absence of human applied pencil or ink to a fixed position, constrained (e.g. circle or rectangle)object. This was used for scoring tests, lottery tickets, etc.

Newer intelligent OMR is a bit more "fuzzy" and can be used for things like detecting if a bank check has a payee and a signature.

what is an optical mark reader?

The Optical Mark Reader is a device the "reads" pencil marks on NCS compatible scan forms such as surveys or test answer forms. If that all seems overly technical to you, just think of it as the machine that checks multiple choice computer forms. In this document The Optical Mark Reader will be referred to as the scanner or OMR. The computer test forms designed for the OMR are known as NCS compatible scan forms. Tests and surveys completed on these forms are read in by the scanner, checked, and the results are saved to a file. This data file can be converted into an output file of several different formats, depending on which type of output you desire.
The OMR is a powerful tool that has many features. If you are using casstat (grading tests), the OMR will print the number of correct answers and the percentage of correct answers at the bottom of each test. It will also record statistical data about each question. This data is recorded in the output file created when the forms are scanned. You?ll find out more about the data file and output formats available later on in this document.
The NCS compatible scan forms are the green and blue scan forms seen below.