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Indian education system has evolved over the years. Technology is going to play key role in the future considering its advantage of scalability/ cost effectiveness. Examination process can be simplified with the help of advance technology.

The education sector in our country is booming. India has the largest student population in the world, a staggering 315 million students. To put that in perspective India’s student population is nearly the same as the entire population of the United States of America. 

Current social distancing norms have resulted in increase in adoption of technology for education processes. Online exams are going to get disrupted with the new technology of proctoring, AI-driven evaluations.

The education sector in India is poised to witness major growth in the coming years. Its market value is expected to be around US$ 180 Billion by 2020. Since India is such a huge player in the education sector globally and it is touted to become the talent supplier of the world, global investment in the Indian education sector is increasing. 

 

Currently, higher education contributes to nearly 60% of the market size. India has managed to enrol nearly 70 million students to higher education in the last two decades and to cater to that population many institutes have mushroomed around the country.

Education Sector in India

 

The ever-growing Indian Education system is demanding and daunting. It is massive machinery with its sheer size having the ability to scare and intimidate stakeholders in the sector. 

 

With its growing size, Indian education is facing new problems which we might not have anticipated to surface in the present. The penetration of technology in every level of society surely has made our lives easier, but it can also be used as a widespread medium of malice, having the ability to create boundless disruption. 

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In recent years, the education system has suffered from the effects of the amalgamation of technology and human society. Social media has opened doors to various malpractices like paper leaks, identity theft, etc. 

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Thus the Indian Education System is in the dire need of new, innovative ideas and solutions to survive before it collapses under its own weight. And it is technology only to whom we can turn to to find solutions and new ideas to better the education system. 

In recent years online examinations have seen wider acceptance in the education industry. They are one of the best testaments to technology’s contribution in safeguarding the education sector’s best interests and core values and help the sector come at par to the recent technological advancements and attain a dynamic, continuously evolving nature, which is essential for education to remain relevant with the evolving standards and values of human society.

One of the advantages of conducting online exams is that it comes with n-number checks and balances to avoid any malpractices from being carried out. Perhaps, these checks and balances make online exams more secure and efficient in rooting out malpractices. Offline exams still have the risk of human errors which won’t be a problem with online exams

Traditional offline, pen-paper based exams involve a lot of logistics and manual work which is tedious and prone to human error at multiple stages. With the increasing number of schools, universities, educational institutes and obviously students, conducting exams has become a tedious task and a few times inefficient. 

Online examinations provide us with a great alternative to offline examinations. Technology provides multiple solutions to problems which traditional exams face nowadays.

Examination Question paper Generation and Distribution

In recent years, numerous incidents of paper leaks have been reported. Paper leaking is a common malpractice that plagues examinations, from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) to State and Union Public Service Commissions (PSCs) have suffered from paper leaks multiple times. 

 

For those of you who are uninitiated with the term paper leak, here’s what it is. 

 

Paper leak is a malpractice in which question papers of the examination are leaked, or made available to students on offline and online mediums before the examination is scheduled. 

 

The problem has only aggravated in recent years with the help of social media. Question papers are leaked on social media platforms like WhatsApp and are shared to a large number of users. 

 

There are multiple factors to blame for paper leaks. Corrupt and dishonest officials who are in charge of the examination centres and question paper distribution centres and lapses in security measures taken by the examination authorities are often the most common factors enabling paper leaks. 

 

Technology can help change the way examination papers are distributed among the centres and students for traditional exams. The question paper can be distributed to the centres via the internet with the added security of data encryption. 

 

The question paper can be encrypted in such a way that the question paper can be downloaded, say, half an hour before the examination is scheduled to be held, to avoid a paper leak.

Question Bank Preparation

Question paper generation is yet another online technology which will help curb the malpractice of Paper leaks. It also helps in making the task of designing question papers much easier and less tedious. 

It works in the following way. 

The controller of the examination (COE) appoints a few Subject Matter Experts who design a question bank of question from the syllabus. The Subject Matter Experts can then login to the online system and define a question bank based difficulty level, marks, objective and subjective questions and other parameters. 

The examiner can define the question paper schema. After the schema is defined by the examiner, the system can automatically generate a question paper. A moderator will then review the question papers, the software creates multiple sets of question papers.

One of that question paper sets can be randomly selected and then be sent to the examination centers in a digital format. This paper is encrypted and password-protected, minimizing the chances of paper leak and other malpractices. The password is communicated to the examination centre one hour before the exam is scheduled. 

This system also gives Subject Matter Experts the opportunity to log in to the question bank and update it and add to the question bank as and when required.

 

Question paper Distribution

Question paper distribution can be automated and secured using technology where a remote education entity/ exam center can download the paper from the internet/ mobile. Access code of the paper will be available only 15 or 30 minutes prior to exam. It would help to mitigate the risk of question paper leakage before starting the exam process.

 

 

Use of Online Assessment Tools for Internal Exams

 

Internal exams like unit tests, terminal exams or end semester exams, midterm exams, final exams and even surprise tests and quizzes require a lot of planning and logistics like setting a question paper, printing the question papers for hundreds or even thousands of students and providing them with answer sheets. 

 

The process does not stop here. Teachers then have to manually evaluate the question papers, which takes a lot of time. Institutes also have to dedicate time for a reevaluation period. After the papers are evaluated, which might take several weeks, the results need to be published too, which again is a tedious process. 

 

As we can now see, conducting internal exams is a time consuming, human labor-consuming and costly task. But institutes can save a lot of time, money, and human labor by using online assessment tools for conducting internal exams. 

 

Online assessment tools like Eklavvya can reduce the burden of conducting offline, pen-paper based examinations on institutes and digitize the entire examination process with 100% accuracy and simplicity. 

 

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Online tools can also help you to radically revolutionize your examinations. Internal exams are typically theory-based and do not assess students on the implementation of the theory in practical scenarios. Online assessment tools can help you set objective type question papers which will assess students on their understanding of the concepts. 

 

You can also use the features of Question Paper Generation and Question Bank Management of online assessment tools to set question papers and design question banks as discussed above.

 

Digital Theory Exam Management

As we have previously discussed, conducting theory exams have the following processes:

 

  1. Setting the question paper
  2. Printing the question papers
  3. Printing the answer sheets
  4. Distribution of question papers and answer sheets at each examination centre
  5. Collection of answer sheets at the respective examination centre
  6. Manual evaluation of answer sheets

 

Conducting your subjective theory exams in a digital way can help you eliminate most of these steps. Digital subjective exams can provide a simplified process which involves the following steps:

  1. Setting an online question paper
  2. Students can type the answers in the online question papers, there is also a facility to accommodate special symbols
  3. Each student’s online answer sheet can be saved in the online system
  4. Evaluators can log in to the system and evaluate the answer sheets with ease
  5. The result processing is simplified

 

With the usage of assessment engines, the overall examination process becomes smooth and result publishing becomes a simple task and errors associated with result processing gets reduced.

 

With Eklavvya you can also identify the strong and weak areas of the batch. 

 

Eklavvya provides you with advanced analytics to check the performance of the batch for a particular chapter, subject or topic. With these analytics, teachers can work on the weak areas of students and help them improve. 

 

Teachers can come up with new strategies to help students understand the topics easily by taking a cue from these analytics.

 

After the teachers have conducted a revision session on the weak areas of the batch, you can organize a test on the weak areas with the help of the online assessment tool.

Assessment for Students

Online assessment tools can also be used for the admission process of institutes. Admissions are usually a combination of tedious, logistical processes and one of that process is an entrance exam. 

 

With the usage of online assessment technology, the entrance exam can be digitized and can be linked to the admission form filling process. 

 

All the prospective students would be asked to appear for an online assessment to assess their knowledge and concepts in addition to academic credentials. Some of the institutes have started such an approach for their courses including BBA, BCA, B Sc, M Com, MBA etc.

This process can enhance the overall admission process and quality of the students can be better for the final selection process with criteria of selection can be associated with academic credentials and assessment test.

Remote Proctoring

Remote Proctoring Process is the method to invigilate the remote candidates with the help of technology.  In the traditional exam process, an invigilator need to be present at the exam center to validate candidates appearing for the exam. For each exam center of around 30-50 candidate, you need one invigilator.

 

So for conducting an exam of 1000+ candidates you would need more than 25 invigilators controlling the exam process. Technology can simplify the process with the help of remote invigilation and proctoring. Remote Proctor can invigilate exams from any location using technology. It can eliminate the need of a physical proctoring process.

Onscreen Marking System

Online assessment tools can also help in simplifying examination answer sheet evaluation. Evaluating answer sheets manually is a tedious and time-consuming task and which is very heavily error-prone. 

Result processing becomes challenging when thousands of answer sheets are evaluated by multiple examiners and the result has to be updated in the system to generate mark sheet.  

Onscreen Marking System can help to simplify the evaluation process with the help of technology. Physical answer sheets are scanned and uploaded to the digital system. Examiners can evaluate answer sheets from any location.  

 

Thus you get a handy online database of all answer sheets and you always have a backup with the Onscreen Marking System. 

Now that we have discussed the various features of online examinations and their advantages over offline, traditional, pen-paper based examinations, let us go over a few Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about online examinations and their uses.

 

What is Online Examination System?

An Online examination system is a digital platform used to conduct examinations in a digital way. 

Online Examination System is a technology-driven way to simplify examination activities like defining exam pattern with question bank, defining exam timer, objective/ subjective question sections, conducting exams using a computer or mobile devices in a paperless manner.

 

Online Examination System is a cost-effective, scalable way to convert traditional pen-paper based exams to online and paperless mode. 

 

Candidates can appear for the exam using any desktop, laptop or mobile device with a browser. Exam results can be generated instantly for the objective type of questions.

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What are the advantages of Online Examination System?

There are various advantages of an Online Examination System. It is a hassle-free way to conduct exams. Having a digital platform to conduct online exams helps institutes save a lot of time, human labour and money. 

 

With the help of an online examination system, examinations can be conducted across multiple locations, without the need for printing question papers for each examination centre. The question paper is uploaded on the system and this digital format can be shared with the in-charge of the examination centre, say, before half an hour of the exam. 

 

Online examination system also makes the process of setting question papers easy. Subject Matter Experts can design a question bank of questions which can be categorised subject wise, topic wise, sub-topic wise, difficulty wise and mark wise. The system then designs multiple sets of question papers and the exam moderator can select one of these sets for the examination. 

 

Online examination systems also make the evaluation system of the answer sheets a very quick process. In the case of subjective examinations, evaluators can log in to the system and evaluate the answer sheets. 

 

In the case of objective questions, the results are instantaneous. 

What is Onscreen/Online Marking System?

Onscreen Marking System is a digital platform in which physical answer sheets can be scanned and uploaded so that evaluators can log in to the system later and evaluate the answer sheets later. 

 

How to prevent paper leaks?

There are various problems that cause paper leaks, while we can’t address every problem, technology and online examination systems provide a great way to prevent paper leaks. 

 

Technology can help change the way examination papers are distributed among the centres and students for traditional exams. The question paper can be distributed to the centres via the internet with the added security of data encryption. 

 

The question paper can be encrypted in such a way that the question paper can be downloaded, say, half an hour before the examination is scheduled to be held, to avoid a paper leak.


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Eklavvya.in is an online assessment and knowledge management solution used by many corporate, Professional Training Institutes, Universities to conduct entrance exam, recruitment exams.

It is possible to design online exam with define question bank and question randomization approach according to difficulty level and exam syllabus.

It is useful tool for Various Test Preparations, Entrance Tests for Academic Courses, Regular Assessment for University Courses. Many Education entities have been benefited with this new approach of the assessment. You can enroll for Free Trial to check all features.

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