Published On : Fri, Oct 9th, 2020

RTMNU’s online exam turns out to be nightmare for students on Day-1

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NU’s Pariksha App develops snag depriving over 300 students of exam

Nagpur: The first day of online examinations being conducted by Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU) turned out to be a nightmare for hundreds of students as the system developed technical snag and went dead abruptly. Over 300 students, as a result, failed to appear in the exam. Now, examinations of such students would be conducted again.

The students found themselves in the dock over non-receipt of One Time Password (OTP) in time. The Pariksha App developed by the University was the main “culprit” for all the mess on the first day of on-line examinations being conducted by RTMNU. Against 1,600 examinees, 8,000 hit the network for OTP and the system stopped working on Thursday. The number of students asking for OTP was more because the students whose examination was not scheduled, too, operated the App out of curiosity. Of course there are only 18% students who failed to log-in their respective examinations. Rest appeared and wrote the same in a smooth manner. Now, the University has decided not to provide OTP for the remaining examinations and appealed to students to submit user ID and password.

The trouble started when most students operated the App who did not have their examinations on Thursday. They did it because they wanted to test the App and check whether they would be able to operate. These ‘extra’ students made all the difference. RTMNU is the first one that developed Pariksha App and introduced the same quite earlier after conducting its test successfully in remote areas. In fact some other universities withdrew as the App they developed failed to operate.

On Thursday, the examinations were scheduled in three phases — 9.30 am to 10.30 am, 11.30 am to 12.30 pm and 1.30 pm to 2.30 pm. The first two phases were conducted smoothly. In the third phase there were around 1,584 students and about 8,000 students hit the network for OTP, due to which the system developed a technical snag and they did not receive OTP for some time. Since they didn’t receive OTP, the students became impatient and pressed the button of ‘Resend OTP’. In the process they received earlier OTP which they put in the column only to find the OTP becoming invalid. They again requested for OTP and they received the second one. It went on for some time. Finally University prepared a common OTP, circulated it among students and examinations began. But, in the process, most students lost their precious time so University gave them extra time of one hour and examination that was supposed to end at 2.30, prolonged to 3.30 pm.

About 300 students could not login to the system and failed to operate. Examinations of such students would be conducted again. Now, students will not be provided OTP for the remaining examinations. Students will have to login, type password and start writing examinations. The students who missed the examination onThursday will be given a chance of writing it again on some Sunday.

Pariksha App:
Dr Subhash Chaudhari, Vice Chancellor; Dr Neeraj Khaty, Registrar; Dr Praful Sable, Director of Examinations and Evaluations all in their presence had conducted the RTMNU-Pariksha App and that had given excellent results. They all thought over Thursday’s chaos in examinations on the first day. According to sources, the university has taken serious cognizance of the matter whose enquiry would be conducted. Highly placed sources said, university bosses are sure about the suspicious role of some elements in creating problems in examinations.