Monday blues for Nagpur University’s online exam

NAGPUR: Festive season has done nothing to cheer up Nagpur University students as technical problems continued on Monday as well. Right from students being unable to login, to missing options, to screen freezing up, students alleged that multiple things kept going wrong throughout.
Mahendra Nimbarte, an education activist and former management council member, said, “Since noon today, I have been receiving complaints from architecture, social work to BEd students.A group of 20 students contacted me saying they appeared for the paper, and received a message that it has been submitted successfully. Later, they all got a message the same exam will be held later in the day. One student told me that she did not complete the paper yet got a message saying exam has been submitted successfully.”
Hindi medium student Zareen Khan (name changed) was shocked to see her questions popping up in English. “When I started the test there was no language option. The circle tabs were there, but nothing was written next to it hence I had no idea which one to click on. Soon the questions started coming in English,” said Khan.
She spoke to her teacher who said that appearing for a different language medium will create problems hence it’s best to drop the test. “I started pressing back to exit from the test but suddenly got the message that my test has been submitted successfully. I called NU helpline number but nobody answers there,” said a worried Khan.
Businessman Gurinder Singh’s daughter had her law paper today and faced anxious moments. “The paper just did not submit for almost an hour. My daughter was worried and said similar situation was faced by many of her classmates. Fortunately, later the submission was completed,” said Renu.
Trupti Chatterjee (name changed) also appeared for her law paper today and said there were a series of issues. “First, there were problems with logging in. Then there were issues with submission. At that point you do not want to click back because whatever MCQs you have marked may not be saved. Also, one cannot dial the NU helpline from the phone because if you minimize the window then the app assumes your are cheating,” said Chatterjee.
NU board of examination and evaluation director Prafulla Sable said the problems faced today were because of two reasons. “First was because of incorrect input of elective subjects from college’s end. That’s the reason the exam software could not map the elective subjects. And today we had over 160 elective subjects, which is very high,” said Sable.
He added that the second problem was a technical one caused due to switching of shifts. “Answer submissions took a long time because of switching of shifts and the load that comes with it. So basically one set of students are submitting their answers while another is in the process of logging in for next exam shift. It’s this switching over period, which is roughly about 15-20 minutes that these issues are seen,” said Sable.
He clarified that all complaints will be looked into. “No student will suffer because of the technical issues,” said Sable.