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Technology to beat exam cheats
Tuesday, 22 April 2008, 18:35 IST
Bangalore: Technology is coming in to address two of the biggest issues faced by educational institutions - question paper leakage and forgery of mark sheets and certificates, reported The Times of India.
Bangalore University (BU) and VTU are said to be considering a technology that will enable them to print question papers at the exam venue just an hour before the exam. To prevent forgery, mark sheets will be bar-coded just the way IIIT-B (International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore) did last year. BU and many other varsities are considering adopting it.
Only on Saturday, the West Bengal Joint Entrance Exam, which was to be held on Sunday, was postponed after the physics, chemistry and biology papers were leaked and two persons were arrested in Midnapore where the three papers were being sold for Rs 2.5 lakh.
With the new technology, the question paper is converted into an encrypted digital format and stored as a PDF attachment in an e-mail. A special printer is installed at the exam location. The printer, once connected to the internet, will locate the e-mail from the server, decode the attachment and print the desired number of copies. A spokesperson of the MNC providing the solution said, "None can locate the mail in the system except for the printer customized for it. Only the authorized person can log on. The printer will have an in-built setting to print only a specified number of question papers."
The spokesperson said pilot project is under way. "The IT department has looked at the technology and is planning to suggest to varsity registrars to implement the system."
In this system, there's a barcode on the back of the certificates and mark sheets. Anybody with a barcode scanner can scan code, log on to a particular website where the university's mark sheet data is stored, feed in the barcode data and check the authenticity of the mark sheet. Ranganath says BU receives a number of verification requests. "With this new technology, nobody needs to send documents to us."
For physical verification, universities charge Rs 150 to Rs 180 per document. Many companies doing mass hiring do not do any verification on account of the cost involved. With barcode verification system, the cost is expected to fall substantially. IIIT-B provides free online verification.
Source: IANS
Source: IANS