MU colleges gear up for another semester exam online, get new online exam providers

A week after the University of Mumbai (MU) announced that the upcoming semester exam too will be conducted in the online mode, colleges are slowly gearing up for the same

A week after the University of Mumbai (MU) announced that the upcoming semester exam too will be conducted in the online mode, colleges are slowly gearing up for the same.

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“We have dropped Google forms and instead, the exam will be conducted using another software this semester. Proctoring will not only be conducted by the software. Our teachers too will be monitoring exams through the day,” said Neha Jagtani, principal of RD National College, Bandra. She added that the college has decided to set up a war room, where teachers will be monitoring students on various screens while the exam is conducted. “Over and above monitoring, the war room will also act as a helpline for students if they face trouble during the exam,” added Jagtani.

Once again, MU has asked colleges to conduct exams in multiple choice questions (MCQ) format and avoid descriptive questions. This decision has not gone down well with colleges. “Since the exam will be in MCQ format, we will continue to shuffle the question numbers and the answers in order to avoid any form of malpractices. We will be stricter with the proctoring process as well,” said Ashok Wadia, principal of Jai Hind College, Churchgate.

In a circular issued last week, Vinod Patil, director of board of examination and evaluations, MU, said that summer semester exams will be conducted online using the same guidelines issued earlier for the winter semester exams held last year.

The exams for semester 1 to 4 for both regular and repeater students will be held between April 15 and May 5. Semester 6 exams for regular and repeater students will be conducted from May 6 to 21 while semester 5 repeater exams will be held from May 24 to June 2. A separate circular will be issued to announce the dates of the remaining exams.

All theory exams are to be conducted online. For degree and post-graduate exams of traditional students (arts, commerce and science), an online test will be held consisting 50 MCQs for 50 marks and the students will be given one hour to complete the same. For vocational courses, an online theory test for a total of 80 marks will be conducted of which 40 marks will be for MCQs and the rest will be for descriptive answers. For inter-disciplinary courses, exams will be held for 60 marks of which 30 will be for MCQ and 30 for descriptive questions.

While institutes are trying newer ways to enhance the online examination system, some are worried that proctoring software will not work for larger batches, especially in aided courses. “There are 300 students in our third-year BCom batch, and switching on the camera for all of them for proctoring purposes is impossible because most students don’t have that kind of internet bandwidth. We also need to think about students appearing for their exams from their hometowns where internet will be slow, so video proctoring might be a task,” said Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrew’s College, Bandra.