Mumbai university students’ personal details won’t be detached from answer sheets

The practice was put in place to hide Mumbai students’ identity from evaluators and prevent malpractices

After finding it difficult to link the names of students to their answer sheets during the last examination, the University of Mumbai (MU) has decided to discontinue the practice of detaching students’ personal details from their answer booklets.

Last semester, MU replaced its traditional pen-and-paper evaluation with an on-screen marking system. (HT File)

The practice was put in place to hide students’ identity from evaluators and prevent malpractices. An official from the university said the on-screen assessment has made the practice redundant.

“A student’s identity is protected in the online assessment system. Teachers are unable to see their personal details,” he said.

MU gives student a paper sheet to fill in their answers. The sheet consists of two parts — the first, in which students enter personal details such as their seat number and college code, is detached after the student has finished writing his paper.

After assessment, the main answer sheets and the detached page are matched using barcodes, in a process called reconciliation.

Last semester, MU replaced its traditional pen-and-paper evaluation with an on-screen marking system.

It, however, continued the practice of detaching one page of the answer sheets. The university had a hard time matching both sheets, especially as there were two agencies involved in the process. This led to delays in the results being declared.Before assessment, the stem of an answer book is cut to separate its sheets.

While one agency scanned and assigned a common barcode to all sheets, a second agency scanned the torn pages. Answer sheets were then left with two barcodes. Supplementary papers were treated as separate answer books.