SPPU semester exams to be tougher than ever; Online video proctoring to be used

While appearing for exams in online format, SPPU students addressed various issues. Following the problems faced by students, the varsity decided to raise the difficulty level of questions in the forthcoming semester.

The Savitribai Phule Pune University’s (SPPU) examination and evaluation department is prepping up to conduct first semester exams starting next month.

SPPU has been holding semester exams online since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. While appearing for exams in online format, students addressed various issues. Following the problems faced by students, the varsity decided to raise the difficulty level of questions in the forthcoming semester.

According to HT, Mahesh Kakade, head, SPPU examination and evaluation department said, “We are planning to make the proctored method of monitoring students’ movement while appearing for online exams stricter, as video proctoring will be used in this semester. But it requires huge space for storing the recorded video data and if all things go well, then it will be used for first time in this semester exams.”

Kakade further added, “As we chose the online format for exams after the pandemic struck, there was less time to prepare question sets and we kept it relatively easy to crack. Now, with two years of conducting online exams with multiple-choice questions (MCQ) method, we will increase the difficulty level of paper sets for the forthcoming exams.”

Kakade informed that faculty, deans, paper setters, moderators and other people are involved in this process. The exams would be conducted in the same MCQ method with 50 marks and a total of 60 questions. The timing would be of one hour and extra 20 minutes will be allotted to specially-abled students. The head of the SPPU examination and evaluation department clarified that the questions will be more difficult for this semester’s exam and students should be prepared for it.

This year, SPPU semester exams will witness the participation of nearly 6.15 lakh students from various streams from more than 350 affiliated colleges to SPPU from Pune, Nashik and Ahmednagar districts. With 284 courses in post-graduate and undergraduate, there are 6,862 subjects. For 1,600 subjects there are two mediums of appearing for the exams with English and Marathi.

Proctored method for SPPU Online Semester Exams

The proctored method will be used by SPPU to conduct exams online. With the help of this proctored method, students will be able to appear for SPPU semester exams using smartphones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers and even from internet cyber cafes.

The proctored method captures and monitors all the minute movements of students as they log in to give the exam through a smartphone, laptop or tablet. Three warnings will be given to students if caught cheating. Such students would be disqualified for committing the error again.

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