IIT Bhubaneswar Conducts Conventional Exams Online For Final-Year Students

Bhubaneswar: A total of 526 final-year students appeared for end-semester examinations conducted successfully by IIT Bhubaneswar in online mode from June 24-30.

Of these, 206 were B Tech students, 36 for dual degree, 75 for M Sc, 167 for M Tech and 42 for PhD – representing a 100% turnout for the 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 conceptual and architectural design was provided by Prof. RV Raja Kumar, Director, and 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 used, with a lot of customization and enhancements as per 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.