Glitch in university test hands students scores of nil
Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com
Chennai:18.12.2019
More than 8,000 students of the distance education stream who appeared for an online internal assessment test at Madras University in June/July 2019 scored zero due to a technical error.
The distance mode students used to get essay type assignments for their internal assessments. The university recently introduced a semester system for students who joined in 2018-19 and converted the internal assessment as an online test.
“When I saw my marks after the online test I was surprised. I got zero marks, even though I had answered many questions correctly,” said a student enrolled in a PG course from Tiruvallur district.
He further said some questions had more than one correct answers in the test.
Staff members at the Institute of Distance Education (IDE) in the university informed the aggrieved students that there was an error and it would be rectified.
Some students said they had to take the tests multiple times despite submitting their responses correctly.
“I completed the test and submitted my response as soon as the internal test was announced. But I recently received a message from IDE asking me to take the internal test again. But not all the students have these issues. Some of my classmates have got up to 18 marks in the internal tests,” an MCom student from the city told TOI.
“Updates on the online test were not proper and even the announcement of personal contact programmes was released in the last minute,” another student said.
Sources in the university said the main error happened due to a glitch in coding.
“The errors happened due to the mismatch between the answer key and correct answers. Some questions had multiple correct answers and some questions did not have correct responses in the choices. The technical department had wrongly coded the answers and several bugs in the system were also detected, which miscalculated the results,” sources said.
“Adequate pre-testing could have avoided the bugs and technical errors,” technical experts said.
When questioned, IDE officials said the errors in the online test was corrected.
“It is the first time we had conducted online test for distance mode students. So, naturally, we had a few technical issues. In some cases, the students have submitted their tests and the same was not recorded in our servers, leading to errors,” officials said.
“But, we have intimated all the students who didn’t submit their answers and asked them to take the exams again. Not a single student was affected by the error and bugs have been sorted out,” they added
TECHNICAL ERROR: Staff members at the Institute of Distance Education (IDE) of Madras University informed the aggrieved students that there was an error and it would be rectified
Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com
Chennai:18.12.2019
More than 8,000 students of the distance education stream who appeared for an online internal assessment test at Madras University in June/July 2019 scored zero due to a technical error.
The distance mode students used to get essay type assignments for their internal assessments. The university recently introduced a semester system for students who joined in 2018-19 and converted the internal assessment as an online test.
“When I saw my marks after the online test I was surprised. I got zero marks, even though I had answered many questions correctly,” said a student enrolled in a PG course from Tiruvallur district.
He further said some questions had more than one correct answers in the test.
Staff members at the Institute of Distance Education (IDE) in the university informed the aggrieved students that there was an error and it would be rectified.
Some students said they had to take the tests multiple times despite submitting their responses correctly.
“I completed the test and submitted my response as soon as the internal test was announced. But I recently received a message from IDE asking me to take the internal test again. But not all the students have these issues. Some of my classmates have got up to 18 marks in the internal tests,” an MCom student from the city told TOI.
“Updates on the online test were not proper and even the announcement of personal contact programmes was released in the last minute,” another student said.
Sources in the university said the main error happened due to a glitch in coding.
“The errors happened due to the mismatch between the answer key and correct answers. Some questions had multiple correct answers and some questions did not have correct responses in the choices. The technical department had wrongly coded the answers and several bugs in the system were also detected, which miscalculated the results,” sources said.
“Adequate pre-testing could have avoided the bugs and technical errors,” technical experts said.
When questioned, IDE officials said the errors in the online test was corrected.
“It is the first time we had conducted online test for distance mode students. So, naturally, we had a few technical issues. In some cases, the students have submitted their tests and the same was not recorded in our servers, leading to errors,” officials said.
“But, we have intimated all the students who didn’t submit their answers and asked them to take the exams again. Not a single student was affected by the error and bugs have been sorted out,” they added
TECHNICAL ERROR: Staff members at the Institute of Distance Education (IDE) of Madras University informed the aggrieved students that there was an error and it would be rectified
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