Mumbai university pulls up its socks to avoid repeat of exam results mess

Varsity is upgrading the assessment software, hiring more people and training its staff to prevent problems during the next exams

To avoid a repeat of the errors that marred assessment of answer sheets and declaration of results during the last academic semester, the University of Mumbai (MU) has announced several changes for its upcoming semester exams. A few of the measures implemented are upgradation of the assessment software, hiring more manpower and training its staff.

A master database has been put together by the university this time with detailed information about teachers eligible for assessment, and the exact number of students per course in different departments. (HT File)

Teachers who assess answer papers will have to go through a day-long workshop and the university has prepared two separate training videos — one each for teachers as well as students — which will be available for reference. The video will be shared with students through their respective colleges and teachers will be able to access the video on the assessment software as well.

“All answer booklets, from different centres, including Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg and Raigad districts will reach the headquarters (Kalina campus) within three days and will be ready for scanning. We will ensure there is no delay in this first step,” said Arjun Ghatule, (acting) director Board of Examination and Evaluation. He added that scanning of papers too will be done within the first three days and with the help of extra scanners, close to 62,000 answer booklets will be scanned every day.

A master database has been put together by the university this time with detailed information about teachers eligible for assessment as well as exact number of students per course under the different departments. “Last semester, close to 3,800 teachers did not report for assessment at all. This time our database has confirmed information of 14,000 teachers who will be informed personally via email as well as letters to report for assessment duty,” said Devanand Shinde, acting vice-chancellor. He added that teachers will be allowed to log in for assessment duty from only one assessment centre, henceforth, to avoid duplication of login ids .

Once again, not all papers will be assessed online this semester as well. “There are certain courses with barely 15-20 students, so the university will decide in such cases to conduct assessment of these courses manually. Majority assessment, however, will be conducted virtually,” added Shinde.

95 results pending

MU on Thursday said that results of 95 students were still pending owing to errors made by students on their answer sheets. The errors include wrong QP code or roll number and in some cases, even the bar code has been tampered with. “Without proper information, we cannot give these results to anyone. What’s worse is that these students have also not approached us yet,” said Arjun Ghatule, director Board of Examination and Evaluation.