Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) number which are printed on cheques in a special magnetic ink which can be read at high speed by the magnetic ink character reader.
most of the data (sort code etc) is pre printed onto the cheque but the amount is unknown until the person writes the cheque
When the cheque is presented for payment , the amount the cheque is for is then printed onto the cheque again in magnetic ink.
Advantages of MICR Accuracy:the documents usually cheques are used with 100% accuracy
Difficult to forge: because of the sophisticated magnetic ink technology used
Can be read easily: cheques are often folded,crumpled up etcmethods such as OCR and OMR would not work with these.MICR uses magnetic pattern so this is unaffected by crumpling
speed of reading documents can be read at high speeds and this is particulary important for clearing cheques
Disadavantages of MICR Expense : The high speed character readers are expensive.
A transcription error is a specific type of data entry error that is commonly made by human operators or by optical character recognition programs (OCR). Human transcription errors are commonly the result of typographical mistakes, putting fingers in the wrong place during touch typing is the easiest way to ascertain this error
Examples of Transcription Error
Input : Gtegory
Instead of : Gregory
Input : 34rd of August
Instead of : 23rd of August
Input : Jishua
Instead of : Joshua
Transposition errors are commonly mistaken for transcription errors, but they should not be confused. As the name suggest, transposition errors occur when characters have “transposed” — that is, they have switched places. Transposition errors are almost always human in origin. The most common way for characters to be transposed is when a user is touch typing at a speed that makes them input one character, before the other. This may be caused by their brain being one step ahead of their body.
Examples of Transposition Error
Input : Gergory
Instead of : Gregory
Input : 23rd of Auguts
Instead of : 23rd of August
Input : Johsua
Instead of : Joshua
problem solving Transcription and Transposition errors are found everywhere, even in professional articles in newspapers or books whether fictional or factual. They can be missed by editors quite simply, just as they can be typed quite simply. The most obvious cure for the errors is for the user to watch the screen when they type, and to proof read. If the entry is occurring in data capture forms, databases or subscription forms, the coder of the forms or the database administrator should use input masks or validation rules.
A common desktop publishing and word processing applications use spell checkers and grammar checkers which may pick up on some transcription/transposition errors
