CAT fright gets VTU mull scrapping online exams

Close on the heels of the online Common Administration Test 2009 (CAT2009) running into virus troubles, the concept of online examination seems to be under review everywhere.

Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), which was one of the first varsities in the country to introduce an online examination for the MBA and MTech courses that it offers, back in 2006, is now contemplating  discontinuing the process altogether due to several technical glitches that it has been facing in their conduct.

“There are many problems in conducting online examinations. So now we are thinking of cancelling it,” said an official from VTU.

To begin with, the university has appointed an expert committee to study the problems related to the online examination system.

“The committee has started studying the system and has already collated a lot of data in this regard. We are awaiting its report, following which we will make a final decision on whether to scrap the online examination system or not,” said Dr KVA Balaji, registrar, VTU.

Interestingly, the online system is not followed at any of the VTU affiliated colleges, but exists only at the quality improvement programme (QIP) and extension centres. “In most instances, we never get to know when the roads are dug up in the vicinity of the centres and we end up losing connectivity for a week or so. This  creates problems for us in conducting the exam,” he said.

Students of QIP and extension centres can appear for the online examination, which is conducted by the VTU from a server located in its Belgaum campus. “Offering online examinations is a good concept. But we also need to understand that as long as we conduct examinations on our campus we can easily control the process. But that’s not the case. Recently, an ongoing road widening work saw the technology getting defunct for a week,” Balaji said.

He added that it has been found that students are less serious at online examinations than at a written one. “This is because they feel they cannot take chances when they have to write,” Balaji said.

It is not just VTU, but the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) as well that is trying to be on guard. The KEA was planning to conduct the Common Entrance Test (CET) for medical and engineering course aspirants online.  However, it has now decided to shelve the plan for a while, as the logistics involved is huge.