While authorities struggled to adopt and adapt to the virtual mode of education during the pandemic, an analysis of the results of two universities in Gujarat has revealed that students' scores surged in the online examination system. This has forced universities to brainstorm and come up with measures to make online examinations a ‘cheat-proof’ system and adopt the latest technologies. The results data from Gujarat Technological University (GTU) and Gujarat University (GU) accessed by the Indian Express revealed that results in 2020 increased by an average 15-50 per cent across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Gujarat University Vice-Chancellor Prof Himanshu Pandya told The Indian Express that the first online examinations were conducted in July 2020 for the academic session 2019-20. "In technical undergraduate courses like BCA, the university recorded an average increase of 20 per cent in results. Similar was the spike in postgraduate courses such as MCA that even increased to 25 per cent in M.Sc,” Pandya said. “In non-technical faculties such as Commerce and Social Sciences, the average increase in overall pass percentage was around 18 per cent to even 50 per cent,” he added.On average, around 50,000 students appear for examinations at Gujarat University at a time. The case of Gujarat Technological University is not different. The results of major technical courses, too, witnessed an increase after the university shifted to online examinations. The Summer 2020 exam results of engineering, pharmacy and management - the three most-sought after courses at GTU - witnessed an increase in the range of 7-11 per cent. According to the results data accessed by The Indian Express, results for the diploma in engineering course increased from 82 per cent to 93 per cent between 2019 and 2020 with offline descriptive and online MCQ exam patterns, respectively. Similarly, MBA results increased from 83 to 91 per cent, Bachelor in Engineering from 92 to 98 per cent and B.Pharm from 80 to 87 per cent. GTU Vice-Chancellor Prof Navin Sheth said: “Since the online exams were MCQ pattern against descriptive offline examinations, prospects of students scoring better increases.” Not denying the possibility of cases of unfair means resulting in this increase in results, Prof Sheth admitted such cases were reported by the university. “We installed cheat-proof technology like detecting face movement of the candidate that would instantly stop the exam and the candidate from taking it further. That created more panic among students. A candidate would call up the university claiming it to be an error, swearing that he had not been using any unfair means but a normal reflex motion. In those cases, we had to allow candidates to continue appearing for their exams,” he added. Gujarat University authorities were alerted when more than 100 students of Law and Arts faculties scored 100 out of 100. Also, a mass case of copying in a class in online examination was detected by university authorities in 2020. Cases where a group of 40-50 students would sit together in a hall or a coaching centre and cheat using a projector taking advantage of MCQ examination pattern were detected by both the universities. “Since the entire question paper would display which was tutored using a projector, we have changed this to jumbled questions for every candidate and display of only one question at a time,” said Prof Pandya. “The moment a candidate attaches a device with a projector, he will be blocked from taking the exam. After working with the examination and technical teams, other technologies used to stop cheating included allowing only one device through one hotspot or IP, blocking of countries other than those from where candidates are enrolled for VPN or server where cases of students using the dark web or other tools to mask their identities. For instance, a student sitting in Vadodara using a server in the US that cannot be tracked. Also, remote access of devices has now been blocked,” Prof Sheth said. Another factor that might have affected the results is the use of devices. At GTU, since the authorities failed to make mobile phones a fool-proof examination mechanism, a majority of students opted for it. The data reflects that of a total of over 60,000 candidates, over 38,000 students took their online examinations on mobile phones, around 7,600 on desktop, 8,400 on laptops and more than 5,800 on tablets. “Though still in progress, we are not able to put any security features in mobile phones. Earlier, barely 1,100-1,200 students registered when the descriptive online exam on laptop and desktop was announced. However, when this was changed to mobile phones and MCQ, over 60,000 candidates appeared,” Prof Sheth said. However, infrastructural issues are still being faced by institutes. For instance, the more proctoring (invigilator) tools are used, the higher bandwidth is required by the candidate to take that examination. Looking at the available mobile network connectivity that varies across the state, if adopted, students would not be able to take the online exam. Taking note of infrastructural glitches, the universities relaxed norms for online exams. For instance, at GTU though the candidates had to register their devices a day before the exam which they cannot change, a few were allowed at the last moment. Deploying additional staff, around 20 for solely answering students’ queries, GTU has conducted an online exam of over 60,000 students of various courses in August-September 2020.
