Even though the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU) had to abandon its plans for an online examination system and had to resort to the manual mode for its first semester examinations, the results of these examinations are almost ready for publication, just over 20 days after the examinations got over.
The valuation of 2.4 lakh answer scripts of 42,000 students is set to be over on February 9 and the results are likely to be out on February 13. The first semester examinations of the KTU got over on January 20.
The pro-vice chancellor of KTU M. Abdul Rahman told The Hindu that among the many changes that the varsity made in the examination system was the decision to do away with the system of recording a candidate’s register number on the answer sheet. Instead of this, the answer script sported only a barcode and the provision to record marks. Separate barcodes were generated for the six papers that a candidate had to write.
The evaluation of the answer sheets took place in 10 centres spread over the State; only government and aided engineering colleges were selected for the purpose.
The varsity also did away with the system of providing false numbers to the answer sheets, a time-consuming process that often held up the valuation work. Each examiner had to evaluate at least one bundle of 25 answer scripts a day.
“We decided not to allow examiners to take home the answer sheets. This, we believe, contributed to the time-bound evaluation of answer sheets,” Dr. Rahman said.
After evaluation by the examiner and the chief examiner, the answer sheets were scanned using a barcode reader and the marks for each paper entered into the computer. This data was captured directly by the KTU servers, thus obviating the need for manual tabulation of the marks scored by a candidate.
“The posting of examiners and chief examiners was also done by the system. Almost the entire post-examination process, save the manual evaluation of answer sheets, was automated. This helped us speed up the entire process to a considerable extent,” he added. The pass board for the first semester examinations is scheduled to meet and finalise the results on February 11.
Valuation of
2.4 lakh answer scripts of 42,000 students is set to be over today
