Online examination – Ways to improve question paper safety, reduce delivery vulnerability

In this smart era, education is also becoming smart vis-a-vis advancement in technology. Traditional methods in education give way for quick delivery at the various processes. Examination and evaluation have been undergoing rapid change. Institutions are adopting smart technologies to reduce the time and efforts to conduct tests, evaluation and result declaration.

Let us examine the technological developments in testing and evaluation, its benefits and how it works. 

Online examinations

Conducting examination is a herculean task for institutions and organisations. From entrance tests to final year exam, an educational institution conducts many examinations in a calendar year. When it comes to government or public service commissions (PSC) in states and centre, examinations are a perennial process.

Administering a manual examination is a painstaking task. From setting up of question paper to declaring results, it needs involvements of many individuals in various capacity. Moreover, the security and secrecy of question paper, answer sheets and identity of candidates and examiners are a major concern in the manual examination process. Cases of question paper leaks are regular news for us and recent one was reported in January 2020 from Uttar Pradesh.

Online examination is handy to resolve all these issues. End-to-end online examination systems ease the hardship of the institutions and testing bodies to administer the exam by coordinating all the processes from registration, creating an exam and candidate verification, as well as security and result tabulation. The system involves online invigilation and proctoring features. The test and evaluation involve two steps - instant question paper and on-screen evaluation.

Just-in-Time Question Paper (JIT QP)

The danger of leaking the question papers are a hanging sword in the examination process. This danger keeps hounding the entire process until the question paper reaches the candidates at the exam centre. Therefore, the institutions and testing agencies have to spend a lot on the safety and secrecy of the question papers and its delivery.

JIT QP is an innovative instant question paper technology to curb the question paper leaks. By this, the question papers are printed at the examination centre two hours before the commencement of the test. Expertly prepared questions are encrypted only to print on time of exam with limited access to authorised personnel to ensure transparency and security.The watermarked question papers contain exam centre code in order to trace the leakage if it occurs after printing.

A leading solution from MeritTrac JIT QP has successfully applied in over one million tests across sectors. This solution has delivered question papers in high-stake examinations with 0% leakage. The Odisha government introduced the just-in-time question paper in the polytechnic examinations. Many agencies and institutions are roping into this technology to develop themselves into smart-institutions. 

On-screen evaluation

Evaluation of answer sheets are next meticulous work in examinations. Segregating the answer sheets, arranging the evaluators in the centre, where evaluation takes place, and tabulation of the marks are time-grabbing activities in the manual examination process. This in fact delays the result declaration and there are great chances of human error. 

TracMarks developed by MeritTrac solve these issues by on-screen evaluation. After the examination, the paper-based answer sheets are scanned and stored in a secured data centre in an encrypted format by masking the candidates' details. The encrypted answer sheets are sent to the examiners for checking. There are options for on-screen marking, adding comments and annotations. This also helps for a quick re-evaluation or providing copy of answer sheet if the candidate demands so.TracMarks thus ensures reducing cost and time - 88% faster result delivery and 100% security guarantee.

The time is ripe for digitalising examinations in India and abroad for the accurate, secure, time-bound and transparent exam process. The aforementioned solutions are useful for digital transformation of examination and evaluation in order to avoid paper leaks, draggy exam process and human errors.