College students struggle to upload answer sheets due to server glitches

CHENNAI: Thousands of students appearing for their online final semester exams at the University of Madras and other State varsities on Monday complained of experiencing difficulties in uploading answer sheets due to various glitches. The universities had recently announced that terminal examinations would be held between September 21 and September 30, 2020, for all UG courses.

As per the schedule, students had to download the question paper and the answers, written in A4 sheets, had to be uploaded within three hours of completing the exams.

“I had a problem with uploading my answer sheets due to server issues. Of the total 12 pages, I could upload only two. When I tried to upload the rest, I kept receiving the upload failure message on my system,” S Kumar, BA final year UG student in the city from University of Madras, said.

He also pointed out that though the university had given an option of sending the answer scripts by speed post if there were online issues, the nearby post offices were too crowded.

N Suresh Babu, another BBA student, said after uploading his answer scripts, the acknowledgment for submission of papers was yet to be received. “I don’t know whether my answer scripts have been uploaded,” he said.

Kannaiyan Pandian, Controller of Examination of University of Madras, while admitting there were issues, said the server problems have now been fixed. He told DT Next that students were also asked to send their papers through e-mail. “Staff was deployed to specifically collect all answer sheets coming by mail,” he said.