Conformal prediction uses the degree of strangeness (nonconformity) of new data instances to determine the confidence values of new predictions. We propose an inductive conformal predictor for sparse coding classifiers, referred to as ICP-SCC. Our contribution is twofold: first, we present two nonconformitymeasures that produce reliable confidence values; second, we propose a batchmode active learning algorithm within the conformal prediction framework to improve classification performance by selecting training instances based on two criteria, informativeness and diversity. Experiments conducted on face and object recognition databases demonstrate that ICP-SCC improves the classification accuracy of state-of-the-art dictionary learning algorithms while producing reliable confidence values.