- Utkarsh Khandelwal
Online Exams: The need of the hour in the COVID pandemic!
Examinations, a process that even terrifies the best of the students is certainly not a cakewalk even for the teachers. The need of the hour is to cease the use of conventional methods of examinations and adapt to modern technology and online exams during the COVID pandemic. Attempting an exam accurately is not an easy task, and conducting it in a proper way is no way easier than that. Teachers, professors, and various other faculty members try their best successful conduct examinations. However, the traditional method of pen and paper-based examinations does have various loopholes that pose many challenges for the staff.
Why do we need online exams?
Upon closely monitoring the conventional way of conducting the examinations we come across various challenges and obstacles:
1) Test centers
Students have to reach the test center which they are not usually familiar with. This creates
a sense of panic among them.
Selecting such locations, and ensuring all the necessary steps are taken for successfully
conducting an examination is yet another challenge. Points that need to be kept in mind by
the administration and faculty members include, ease of accessibility of centers, proper
infrastructure, hygiene facilities, etc. In the current situation of COVID-19 pandemic, another
important factor that cannot be ignored is social distancing, the center should be such that,
all the students should be accommodated in it maintaining a safe distance to avoid the risk of
spreading the virus.
2) Malpractices
Cheating is a temptation that many students often give up into. Apart from that, there have
been many instances where the question paper was leaked before the examinations. It adds
an additional burden to the teachers and invigilators to ensure that the examinations are
conducted without such malpractices.
3) Assessment of examinations/ answers
When the students are done writing their examination, the main job of teachers begin. They
have to check the answer sheets, mark them, normalize those marks if needed, compile
them, and then send it forward to be published. And to add on to their misery all these steps
are done manually. It is surely a very tedious job and chances of personal error may
increase in it.
4) Inquiries and re-assessment
Every year thousands of students apply to get a copy of their answer sheets. Without the
use of modern technology, this step cumbers the teachers even further. Each and every page
of the answer sheet is scanned and then sent to the student.
When a request for reassessment is made, then the entire process mentioned in the above
point is to be repeated, which is certainly not easy to do without the help of modern
technology.
Keeping up with the fast pace of life these days, it's evident that we must upgrade our
examination process. Making use of the present opportunities available through modern
technology we must look for a viable alternative such as online examinations, online open-book tests, online objective examinations, etc. These examinations can be conducted from
the ease of one's home or depending on the infrastructure, can even be conducted in
various designated computer centers.
Upgrading the conventional pen and paper-based examinations to more tech-savvy online examinations have many advantages:
It makes it easier for students to attempt these exams, as it can be accessed from the ease of their home. Plus, it also provides them with the opportunity to reconsider their answer and change it if needed, which was very difficult in case of pen and paper-based examinations.
It makes it easier for teachers to conduct these online examinations.
Using various softwares it can be assured that the candidate is not attempting the exam maliciously.
Such software prevents the opening of any other page on the desktop except the examination page.
Also by making the use of modern technology, teachers can very easily compile results and publish it.
In the case of objective examinations, the advancing technology eases the work of the teachers to such an extent that even they don't have to check each and every paper manually. The chances of human error are also decreased significantly.
We are doing our part!
Rootworkz offers a lot of features that aid in conducting online examinations smoothly. The test papers can be created easily. The results are displayed in the form of bar graphs and charts which help the teacher to see the class performance, both of an individual, and also the average performance.
Thus, the need of the hour is to cease the use of conventional methods of examinations and
adapt to modern technology and online exams.