There is an urgent need to shift from offline examination to computer-based examination to mitigate and lower the mental stress and strains associated with the old systems. It is a one-time solution to many troubles associated with conducting major examinations and subsequent evaluations systems at present. A little investment over it is justified by the institutes and organizations. Probably the present practice involves spending crores of rupees of J & K and other parts every year for conducting the annual and bi-annual examinations.
Heads of the institutions should act promptly and establish infrastructure for computer-based examinations in their respective institutions. The visionary people in the Government of Jammu and Kashmir need to be complimented for taking steps in making their offices paperless including civil secretariat, during “Darbar Move”, which started by Maharaja in 1872, which then was justified, keeping in view the population and means of communications.
The arrival of new technologies including the AI, data sciences, internet of things and nanotechnology has steadily digitalized services, taking them to the online form and it was seen during pandemic that various institutions across globe have adapted Learning Management Systems. This teaching, monitoring and evaluation system facilitates a balanced approach toward imparting knowledge and an easy grading of the candidates, saying goodbye to century old stressful paper based examinations.
Computer testing is an alternative to pen and paper and can be conducted online through the use of the internet or a computer-aided facility with a good power backup. It is a time-efficient and effective means of hosting large-scale online examinations concurrently and simultaneously. It enables educational institutions to evaluate candidates’ performance quickly irrespective of their geographical location/coordinates. The ubiquitousness of several computer-based examination systems must encourage institutions to shift to online examinations.
These platforms support a host of knowledge and application-based questions, enabling examiners to prepare a questionnaire with multiple question types, which range from MCQs, fill in the blanks, check boxes to short answers and long answers (nonetheless that need to be evaluated by the teacher separately). National Testing Agencies (NTA) and NPTEL has been doing it meticulously and the private sector need to be appreciated for establishing the infrastructure for such examinations.
On trial basis, we suscessfully conducted paperless test of B. tech Ist semester Engineering Physics students as per NEP 2020, despite hurdless of conectivity, the examination was concluded smoothly. The automated reports generated is a comprehensive approach to a candidate’s performance, with a question-wise and section-wise summary of the attempt, time-taken and the difficulty level faced during examination.
Thus, it is beseeched that all educational institutions should establish infrastructure for sufficient computer systems with 3-tier high speed internet and powerful backups. These places can also be used for taking online classes during exigencies.
(The author is teaching nanotechnology at NIT Srinagar, known for taking new initiatives, holding the Chair, Dean Alumni and International Affairs, can be reached through [email protected].)
