Students even from Andaman take TNAU semester examination online

Animesh Sarkar, a final year B.Sc. Agriculture student of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), has been busy for the last few days, visiting his friend’s house for a few hours. He would go to his friend’s house, stay there between 9.30 a.m. and 12.30 p.m., remain glued to his mobile phone and then return home. He would do so again on Monday, travel from his home in Shaheed Dweep, an islet in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, to take his last semester examination that the TNAU has been conducting online.

Mr. Sarkar travels to his friend’s home to access internet. “My friend’s house near the market is the place in the islet where the broadband connectivity is relatively better,” he says. There are 2,364 students like him who are taking the examination online, says Controller of Examination K. Soorianathasundaram. “While most students are from within the State, a few like Mr. Sarkar are from outside.”

Though he has difficulty in accessing internet to take the examination, the Andaman student is happy in a way. “I’m happy because I’ll get my degree certificate sometime soon and that will help me get a job at the earliest.”

S. Atchaya, a final year B.Sc. Horticulture student at the Horticultural College and Research Institute for Women in Musuri, is also happy that the University has started conducting the end-semester examination.

The University asked the students to download a mobile application if they want to write using an android phone or visit a web application to take the examination. Thereafter, it guided them through the steps to help them write the examination, recalls the Controller.

“The University conducted a few webinars to familiarise the students with the application – right from installation to signing of the exam paper at the end of the stipulated hours. And, then it also conducted two mock tests.”

After the mock tests, the University took feedback from students, sent those to the third-party software developer who provided the web application platform to incorporate changes. Not stopping with that the University also sensitised its faculty who set question papers.

“After the faculty concerned set question papers, senior faculty reviewed those to ensure that they had framed the questions to test the students’ understanding and was in tune with the new reality – that the students were answering using laptop or mobile phone,” explains the Controller.

To avoid malpractice, the University released the question paper 15 minutes before the start of the exam, asked students to answer using the pen colour mentioned in the question and scan and upload descriptive answers once they finished.

In the backend the University using the application also live recorded the students writing the examination to prevent any malpractice. And, for those students who used mobile phones for three hours at a stretch, battery was not an issue either. Ms. Atchaya says the drain varied between 10% and 20%.

Though the University will complete the examination in a few days, it is giving the final year students the option to opt for pen and paper examination but only after reviewing their examination log, the Controller adds.

A release issued a few days ago from the University said Vice Chancellor N. Kumar also assigned faculty coordinators for proctoring the students and asked the software service provider to share phone number and e-mail ids to help students to overcome difficulties at the time of writing the examination.