November 30, 2020.
TED NewsDesk, New Delhi: Most universities and other educational institutions are holding online exams due to the coronavirus pandemic which has given the students with new options to cheat. Many students have been reported to cheat during the online exams in different IITs using Whatsapp to create groups where students review the questions papers and provide answers, google the answers or discuss solutions on the phones.
The Ministry of Education had constituted a ten-member committee in October headed by Bhaskar Ramamurthi who is the Director of IIT-Madras. The committee which also includes the Director of IIT-Kanpur, IIT- Delhi, IIT- Bhilai, NIT- Suratkal, NIT-Durgapur, IIIT-Guwahati, IIIT-SriCity and IISER Mohali was set up to come up with a set of standard guidelines for the conduct of online exams.
Incidents of cheating using Whatsapp during online exams have also been faced by IIT-Bombay, IIT-Ropar and IIT-Kharagpur as well. Although the institutions have placed several guidelines to curb the incidents of cheating during the exams, these rules have not been as successful as expected. In extreme situations, IIT-Bombay had to postpone its exams due to rampant incidents of cheating.
The IITs have come to adopt specific measures to stop the students from cheating, one of the methods is “Remote proctoring” where live cameras have been set up by the institutions from where the invigilator can keep an eye on the students. IIT-Ropar and IIT-Delhi, student s have been given long answer type questions so that students don’t get much time to discuss the answers or cheat otherwise.
Such guidelines are necessary to conduct fair exams and kept the students from cheating.
Source: Financial Express