DU teachers doubt feasibility of open book exams, await clarity on evaluation guidelines – education

As Delhi College’s on-line open book examinations started on Monday, the teachers expressed doubts over its feasibility in the long term and likewise flagged the dearth of guidelines to judge college students below the most recent examination mode. The varsity has maintained that it’s choosing the open book examination mode as a one-time measure in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

Arun Attri, a professor of Shaheed Bhagat Singh School, stated the brand new examination mode has ended uncertainty for over 2 lakh college students who now know that since they’ve taken the exams, they are going to get their outcomes and may apply for Masters.

He, nonetheless, stated the open book examination will not be a possible choice in the long term for the varsity which is thought for its commerce and humanities programs.

“Such exams could also be possible for engineering and science college students, however gained’t serve the aim for commerce and humanities programs. They’re extra like assignments fairly than exams,” Attri stated. A professor, requesting anonymity, stated such a mode of examination additionally raises issues over dishonest and use of fraudulent means by college students. He stated teachers have learnt about college students sharing solutions on social messaging platforms like WhatsApp. “There isn’t any option to test such cases. The solutions to many questions are simply obtainable on the web and college students will simply copy them. How do we all know whether or not a pupil has really understood what he has written? It’s disadvantageous for many who really put in exhausting work and put together for the exams,” the professor added. “The scholars are in contact with one another over WhatsApp. Even these college students, who will not be keen to share solutions, are pressured to take action within the identify of friendship. There isn’t any approach we will test this or preserve a tab on it. If I get the identical reply in 10 reply sheets, how am I supposed to judge them?” one other professor rued. Delhi College Teachers’ Affiliation treasurer Abha Dev Habib stated all college students have the identical research materials. “Earlier, the scholars would go to libraries and take further notes, however as a result of pandemic that has not been potential. I’ve despatched the identical notes to each pupil and they are going to be relying on related materials,” she stated. Abha, who teaches at Miranda Home, stated teachers are awaiting clarity on how they are going to consider the reply sheets.

“We have no idea whether or not we will probably be despatched the reply sheets or given a login to the portal. We have no idea which software program will we be utilizing to judge the reply sheets. There was no coaching given to us on this,” she stated.

Pankaj Garg, former educational council member and a professor of Rajdhani School, concurred with Abha and stated teachers will face difficulties in evaluating the examinees. “There’s a truthful chance that there could be swapping of the pages whereas scanning and importing, this could disturb the sequence… teachers must be very cautious in connecting all these pages which belong to the identical query,” he stated. Whereas scanning, some pages could also be blurred and it could be troublesome to learn them fastidiously. It might be equally troublesome to connect with the subsequent web page and therefore, the continuity of the reply could be misplaced, Garg stated. For teachers, probably the most difficult level could be marking of pages, it appears that evidently evaluation would take for much longer, he added. Sharing the expertise of giving the open book examination, a Kashmiri pupil of Dyal Singh School stated, “I didn’t really feel like I used to be giving an examination since I had entry to the research materials. I really feel nothing can examine to the pen and paper exams as a result of in these set-ups, we really get to check our information.” One other pupil stated such an examination mode is “not credible” and teachers haven’t any means to test whether or not the scholars are writing the solutions or another person of their place. “The scholars are additionally not very severe about these exams since they’ve entry to books. Additionally they fail to organize totally,” the coed added.