Website crashes briefly during second day of DU’S online open-book exams

THROUGHOUT THE DAY, STUDENTS TOOK TO SOCIAL MEDIA TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE GLITCHES AND REACHED OUT TO THEIR TEACHERS FOR HELP

nNEWDELHI: Final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students of Delhi University continued to face a harrowing time on Tuesday—the second day of online open-book exams (OBE) at Delhi University—as the website briefly crashed in the afternoon while students were trying to upload their answer scripts.

Throughout the day, students took to social media to complain about the glitches and reached out to their teachers for help.

Karuna Sawal, a final-year Bcom (Hons) student, said she allotted herself 45 minutes of the total time just to upload her answer sheets. “While uploading my answers, the website crashed. I tried to attach my answer scripts on e-mail but even that has a limit of 25MB. It was traumatising to struggle through this and the worst thing is it does not end here. It might happen again,” she said, adding that she has three more exams to take.

The OBE exams, to be held as a one-time measure in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, will continue till August 31 for around 240,000 students of the varsity—including those enrolled in non-collegiate courses of School of Open Learning (SOL) and Non-collegiate Women’s Education Board (NCWEB). On Monday, the first day of exams, students had complained of technical glitches.

While 35,000 students appeared for the exams on Monday, as per data provided by university officials, 32,000 students appeared for their exams on Tuesday. Teachers said that several students received the wrong question papers on e-mail and had to approach their colleges for the correct ones.

Pankaj Garg, a former academic council member who teaches at Rajdhani College, was among those teachers. “Students have been extremely stressed. Since uploading answers on the portal is becoming difficult, they e-mail their answer scripts to university officials and college’s nodal officers. It raises concerns of duplicity if they send their answer scripts everywhere. Some students even send e-mails to colleges after the deadline due to all the confusion. So, there remains a question over whether the varsity will accept answer scripts from colleges after the deadline,” he said. Garg has also written to vice-chancellor Yogesh Tyagi asking him to look into the issues. Despite calls and messages, Tyagi did not comment on the matter on Tuesday.

DU Teachers’ Association member Abha Dev Habib also raised questions over the rule of asking students to mention their name in the e-mail while sending their answer scripts. “Students fear victimisation. They are nervous about sharing their experiences in the public domain as they may face discrimination,” she said.

DU Dean of Colleges Balaram Pani said, “If the portal is not working, they can e-mail us the answer scripts. The website is not the only option. Yes, we are facing issues of duplicity but we are working on finding a solution to deal with it.”