OBE exams: Colleges get answer scripts of ‘unknown’ students, DU says will sort them out

Around 2,40,000 final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students of DU are taking the exams.

Several Delhi University (DU) colleges have received answer scripts of “unknown” students during the first two days of the ongoing online open-book examination (OBE), raising concerns that these answer scripts could be “misplaced” and thus lead to “utter chaos” during the evaluation process.

The OBE exams, being held as a one-time measure this year in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, began on Monday and will continue till August 31. Around 2,40,000 final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students of DU are taking the exams.

During the OBE exams, students can either upload their answer copies on the university’s online examination portal or email them to their colleges or departments.

After two days of exams, a few colleges said they have received answer copies of students who are not registered with them. For instance, Indraprastha College (IP) for Women has received nearly 50 answer copies of students not o their rolls on Monday.

College principal Babli Moitra Saraf said, “We have received around 50 answer copies from students who are not registered with our college. We could not identify the name of the colleges of those students. We have kept these answer scripts in a separate folder and have informed the university administration about them. We have to wait for either the student or the respective college to come forward and clear up the confusion.”

Around 40 such answer scripts reached Kirori Mal College (KMC) on Tuesday. College principal Vibha Singh Chauhan said, “We have also received answer scripts of students from other colleges. Following this, we have put up a notice on our website requesting students to send their answer copies to their respective colleges only. We have forwarded the 40 answer scripts to the university administration with a note that they are not of our students.”

Manoj Sinha, principal of Aryabhatta College, said, “On Monday, we had also received a few answer sheets of students who are not registered with our college. We immediately forwarded them to the university administration.”

Several faculty members raised concerns about this. Rajesh Jha, a member of DU’s executive council (EC), said, “The colleges will have a harrowing time collecting and compiling the answer copies for evaluation. Colleges will have to send such papers to the DU’s exam branch, where there a possible breach of student privacy may take place. Who will take the responsibility if these answer copies get misplaced?”

Despite several attempts, DU dean of examination Vinay Gupta did not respond to calls and texts seeking is comment.

Sanjeev Singh, head of computer centre, DU, said, “Colleges have informed the examination branch about them getting answer scripts of students from other colleges. The colleges will send such answer scripts to the exam branch. The branch will segregate these answer copies on the basis of roll numbers. It will not be an issue. When the colleges have designated email IDs, students should refrain from sending answer scripts on other email addresses.”

Abha Dev Habib, treasurer of DU Teachers’ University (DUTA), said, “The university’s exam branch is going to have nightmares while compiling answer scripts as several students are submitting them multiple times. How will the university decide which script, from among the multiple submissions, will be treated as the final script for evaluation?”