Bhubaneswar: A total of 526 final-year students appeared for the end-semester examinations conducted successfully by IIT Bhubaneswar in an online mode. The duration of the exams was from June 24-30.
Of these, 206 were B Tech students, 36 dual degree, 75 for M Sc, 167 for M Tech and 42 for PhD – representing a 100% turnout for the online exams.
Though the exams were conducted online, IIT Bhubaneswar created an innovative in-house system to organize conventional examinations with invigilation in virtual examination halls. The process helped in the smooth conduct of the examinations.
The conceptual and architectural design was provided by Prof. RV Raja Kumar, Director, whereas the system was developed by the Computer and IT Services Cell (CITSC) of the institute with Chairman Dr Barathram and programmer Chandra Vadde.
A commercial system provided by Wheebox as its subsystem was employed with a lot of customizations and enhancements as per the guidance of the institute.
“One of the challenges faced in the system design is to provide fairness of access to students who have a lot of variation in available gadgets and internet connectivity. Since the answering can also be done with pen and paper, the requirement of internet is reduced to question paper access, answer paper uploading and invigilation. The institute provided multiple options to facilitate the students to take the test with fairness, though they have different levels of technology accesses (single to two gadgets),” said Dr Raja Kumar.
The institute scheduled two examinations to facilitate students acquire facilities in case they didn’t have it. But all of them have the first opportunity to appear for the exams online.
PNN