IIT-Bhubaneswar holds end‐semester exams online amid Corona pandemic

Education Odisha

Bhubaneswar: IIT-Bhubaneswar conducted the end‐semester examinations in the normal comprehensive way in online mode from June 24 to 30 for its final year subjects.

A total of 526 students, including BTech (206) Dual Degree (36), M.sc (75), M.Tech (167), PhD (42) appeared the examinations.

The  commercially  available  systems  for  online  examinations  are  normally  designed to hold computer-based tests and not for conventional examinations in a comprehensive form and have  certain limitations.

“IIT Bhubaneswar created an innovative system in‐house to hold conventional examinations online with invigilation in virtual examination halls and adopted the same for its final year students. The conceptual and architectural design of the system 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 Dr Barathram, Chairman and Mr Chandra Vadde, the programmer carrying on the main development,” said an IIT Bhubaneswar communiqué.

The system uses a commercial system provided by Wheebox as its subsystem with a lot of customization and enhancements made as per the guidance of the institute.

Dr PR Sahu, Dean (Academic) said, “The examinations could be held without any compromise on the regulations despite the pandemic situation. The one change made is that the duration of the online End-sem exam is reduced to two hours from the usual three hours and accordingly the weightage to 40% in place of 50%, as recommended by our Senate.”

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