MU improves entire online assessment for winter exams

In an attempt to prevent any kind of error in the online assessment of the upcoming winter semester examinations, the Mumbai University (MU) has improvised the entire On-Screen Marking (OSM) process. The university claims to have tackled the technical, physical and logistical drawbacks in the assessment managed by Merit-Trac company which recently delayed the results of 477 examinations.

The MU officials revealed that they have identified the technical glitches, rectified the errors, tested the improvisations, trained the concerned personnel and increased manpower for the evaluation of 452 winter examinations. A master data- base has been created which includes detailed information of every student appearing for a particular examination of a particular subject of the respective course. A similar database of teachers including both examiners and moderators has also been created.

No supplements would be provided to students. Devanand Shinde, acting Vice-Chancellor (VC) of MU, said, “The answer booklet is of 40 pages which is sufficient. This is as per the existing rule of the university." Training sessions and workshops will be conducted for all teachers, principals and non-teaching staff involved in this process. Shinde added, “We will demonstrate to the concerned authorities various steps involved in the entire assessment.”

The answer scripts will be scanned on the fifth day from the date of examination. Arjun Ghatule, director (in-charge), board of examinations and evaluation, said, “The answer scripts will arrive at the university head office in three days from examination. Then the barcodes will be scanned and top page will be separated in two days. And on the fifth day the answer scripts will be scanned by the system of the agency. 62,000 answer scripts are expected to be scanned in one day.”

The logistics to transport papers from districts like Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg and Raigad has been improved.

The manpower involved in the process has increased to 250. The entire assessment will be done in one building to avoid wastage of time.

The internet speed has been improved to avoid server issues.

A video tutorial will be created both for teachers and students.

While, a full time technical support will be provided at all 282 centralised assessment process (CAP) centres and Help Desk will be initiated to cater to students.

The winter examination would have 452 exams, with 481 full-time programmes and 604 part-time programmes. Over 4,10,449 students will appear for papers. Over 14,000 teachers have been assigned for assessment.

The schedule is as follows: BA and BSc exams will start from November 8 and law students will appear for papers from November 13. BCom and Engineering students will start exams from November 20.