Ignou seeks report from Yahoo on collapse of online exam

In the wake of the collapse of its online entrance exam for engineering programmes, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) today asked the service provider Yahoo! to submit a report xplaining what went wrong leading to the crash.

The Ignou, which offers distance education to over 18 lakh students, failed to conduct the online entrance on Saturday as the online system collapsed minutes after the exam started. The university was using the server of Yahoo! for this test.

"Today we have asked the Yahoo! to submit a report explaining what went wrong leading to the collapse of the online entrance exam. We have asked for the log which will be examined to find out how the on-line testing crashed," the examination coordinator professor Shiv Kumar Vyas said.

About 9,350 students were supposed to appear in the test for admission into the diploma and degree programmes in engineering under Ignou.

"The exam had started and immediately collapsed as it could not survive the hits. We are not ruling out possibility of a sabotage by certain elements. The picture will be clear after our technical committee examines the log," he said. The online exam was supposed to be held in seven subjects — English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Assamese and Marathi.

Vyas did not rule out the possibility of holding the test through the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) system.

"First we will examine if the test could be held on-line again. If we find it is not possible, we may hold the test in the OMR system," he said.

The test was being held at 80 centres across the country.

Vyas said that if the committee comes across any sabotage, the authorities will take the issue with police for appropriate action.

The entire matter is being looked into by the examination committee of the university.