The first two days of the 10 day marathon online CAT or Common Admission Test, the entrance test conducted by Indian Institute of Management (IIM) for admission to its premier business schools throughout India, have been marred by technical glitches keeping 2000 candidates over 50 test centres from appearing for the test on day one. Sunday was no different and almost 50 centres had to be closed down. (release)
This year, an approximate 240,000 students are expected to appear for the online CAT, from 28th November to 7th December at 360 centres in 104 locations. The CAT test scores are also considered for admission by institutes besides the IIMs. Traditionally it was a paper-pencil test, but this year. the IIMs, along with Prometric, a US Based, educational online testing solutions company, had made it an online test. Prometric also conducts the GRE and the TOEFL tests online.
The Problems: Servers, Hung PCs, Viruses
Students had to face issues like servers crashing, computers hanging, login failures and lack of guidance on both days of the test. Faulty computers reportedly also shut down in between tests. Besides that, other aspirants who did manage to give the test found it difficult to concentrate due to the chaos. According to a statement in the Times Of India by Ramesh Nava, VP & GM (Asia Pacific, Japan and Africa) “the viruses that attacked the test delivery system were not detected by the anti-virus software at the testing centres.”
Eleven centres in Bangalore, eight in Bhopal, six in Lucknow, five each in New Delhi and Mumbai, four in Ghaziabad, two each in Hyderabad and Varanasi, and one centre each in Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Kolkata, Nagpur and Navi Mumbai remained closed on Sunday as well. According to the statement, Prometric had generated new appointments for individuals who had problems on Saturday.
Other Online Tests in India
A similar, recent, attempt at an online test by IGNOU, for its diploma and degree programmes in engineering, had crashed as soon as the test had begun. The exam had been conducted by Yahoo. Manipal and BITS Pilani have been conducting online entrance test for admission from 2005 without serious problems.
Advantages Of An Online Exam System
There’s no excuse for how poorly prepared the organizers and Prometric appear to have been to deal with the scale, and potential issues like virus’ which weren’t detected. However, despite the issues, we believe that an online CAT exam is a step in the right direction:
1. More Choices For Students: The aspirant has the luxury to choose the date from among the 10 days the test is being conducted. B-School aspirants often have to give multiple exams, and an online test held over a period of time allows them to plan their exam schedule accordingly. Engineering entrance exams should also go online: often students have to choose between entrance exams due to a clash of dates, and an online exam reduces the chances of missing a test. Early announcement of results also allows aspirants more time to plan on their choice of b-schools and the formalities involved.
2. Wider Geographical Reach: The test will have wider geographical reach. Students from small towns and rural areas often have to travel long distances to take entrance exams, sometimes in specific states. With proper infrastructure in place the test can be conducted at small towns as well.
3. Reduces Human/OCR Error: It reduces the chance of human error, in terms of correction of the test papers, and the results can be released fast and more accurately. The CAT exam, as Shashi pointed out in the comments, uses an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system, which also has its issues with detecting answers.
4. Lower Testing And Logistical Costs: Online tests are far more scalable, and a reduction in the marginal cost per student of conducting the test could help reduce the test fee for aspirants. Lets also not forget the logistical issues of collecting test papers from across the country and having them assessed individually.
This is, of course, besides the fact that a paperless test might help save a few trees.
Related
–News Digest: BSNL, Google, Hungama, Yahoo, RCOM, TEDIndia-Times Internet
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9 Comments until now.
Everything is great about online test and I am all for it, but such shoddy execution puts the future of aspirants in jeopardy. That's a huge cost to pay for the so-called niceities of online system. And, in spite of the online test, the results are going to be declared after 6 weeks. Contrast this with instaneous results for GRE/GMAT.
BTW, # 3 is not correct. Currently, the answer sheets are evaluated with OCR anyway.
Shashi: thanks. correcting that. There are OCR errors as well, and this was for all entrance exams, not just CAT.
While the move to go online might seem obvious and prophetic even, there are mass inefficiencies with such a process and these should be dealt with before any plans for grandeur.
"geographical reach.." – Can you ensure equality in terms of bandwidth and network connectivity PAN India, let alone system compatibility., etc? If nothing else, this is a disadvantage to rural students who take up the exams in remote areas.
"reduces human error.." – Where multiple sets are involved, the system is inherently flawed. it is IMPOSSIBLE to ensure consistency in the level of difficulty of all question paper sets without compromise.
"logistics etc.." – all this management gyaan, and they could not even get themselves a decent vendor. The kind of statements being issued by Ramesh Nava, or whoever at Prometric, eschews gross negligence. Lucky for them they will get away, unlike any Indian company.
There is more to follow.
i am work in the Evaluation Team @ eLitmus and we shifted to pen and paper a couple of years back. Thanks to IIM's for helping us substantiate our argument with a case study. Like with evaluation, CAT will follow us with a lag!
Its not OCR. Its OMR technology thats used. If your answer sheet requires you to darken bubbles…its OMR
On-line examination provides the mobility to
give examination from anywhere and this
procedure is accurate as the computer
check the examination paper.
Song of the Season: Film Dilli Ka Thug Kishore Kumar Song: C A T CAT maane Billie. R A T RAT maane Chooha. G O O D GOOD maane Acha. B I T S A T BITSAT maane BITS Pilani Acha Online Exam. BITS Pilani is a leader who knows the way goes the way and shows the way.
its very fast and telented site..
Exams must be in hard copies always. Even when they talk about mistakes,geographical coverage & many things I am sure they cant give explanation to all those real merits who gets less marks because of there technical maestro competitors. So rather thinking of making money by cost minimization they should think of hunting the real merit. If their spectrum cant stop some viruses then how can they say that they are capable enough to hunt the exact merit by technology?? are we suppose to be fools??
Well the decision to go online for the CAT exams by IIM was futuristic and progressive. It is high time the eduction institutions start adapting the technology they teach. However this cannot be seen as a excuse for the deblace of the online CAT exam, I think this is a pure lack of planning of scale and just that somebody did not take enough care to plan and do manual mock / practice exams before the final. Simulated testing does not all the time bring out the practical issues.____I have the experience of setting up such a testing platform capable of handling 5000 simultanious candidates and have gone through all the difficulties that prometric is talking about