THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Students appearing for university examinations from home! Might sound rather strange. But Cusat has decided to give the online examination a try after factoring in the large number of students, from other states and those based in containment zones, unable to reach the exam centres due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The final semester exams of 13 postgraduate programmes of Cusat slated to begin on Wednesday will see candidates logged on to the internet at home with smartphones or computers to which questions will be sent in five sets every half an hour. The students will have to write down the answers of each set on one side of A4 size paper within 30 minutes and scan and upload the page immediately after each set. The next set of questions will be released online after the process has been completed. Each paper will be of 180 minutes’(three-hour) duration, of which 150 minutes will be spent on writing the answers and the remaining 30 minutes for scanning and uploading the answer papers of each set. The exams will be conducted through open source learning platform Moodle.
‘Foolproof mechanism’
Cusat officials said a number of measures have been adopted to ensure foolproof conduct of the online examination. “The questions will be of higher order thinking type or analytical type. Besides, a short viva voce on the given questions will be conducted after the online examination to ensure that answers have indeed been given by the student,” Benjamin Varghese, Controller of Examinations, Cusat, told TNIE.
A number of mock tests have bene conducted to iron out the technical flaws, if any, the official said. The examinations were slated to be held in April but had to be postponed indefinitely.
Academic community divided
The academic community appeared divided over the concept of online examination. The Save University Campaign Committee, a group of education activists, has decried the varsity’s move to do away with the confidentiality associated with the examination, paving the way for large-scale malpractice.
However, A Jayakrishnan, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Kerala(KU) hailed the move. “ At many foreign varsities, open-book examination is followed which tests the students’ understanding of key concepts and their problem-solving skills. Even keeping a textbook or referring to the internet will not help in such cases,” he added.