Fire fallout: OU mulls online evaluation

​Hyderabad: To avoid mishaps like the recent fire accident at spot evaluation centre that led to concerns and uneasiness among students, Osmania University is mulling to switch to online evaluation in a phased manner. 

Also, the committee, appointed by the varsity to probe into fire accident, found that only nine percentage of answer scripts of 87,000 odd BSc scripts kept for coding purpose were damaged while remaining were partially damaged. 

Elaborating details on online evaluation, Registrar Prof Gopal Reddy said that some universities in different States had adopted this method. 

“Answer sheets would be scanned and stored in a file. Then this file would be made available to the lecturer for evaluation. However, there are challenges. We have to see how lecturers and professors get accustomed to this new method. Trying on pilot basis to get an idea is one of the 
options,” he said.

In a press note issued by Osmania University here on Tuesday, it said the panel recommended holding the BSc examinations in certain subjects in the last week of June 2018. All students, except those booked for malpractices, have to reappear for the semester exams as per the revised time-table to be circulated shortly to colleges and to be displayed on the University website.  Students need not pay any exam fee and can take the exams in the same centres with the same hall tickets issued earlier.

On closer scrutiny, it was observed that the damage was partially due to the fire and more due to water used to douse the fire. Water soaked more answer scripts making them illegible for evaluation.

It may be recalled that fire broke out in the early hours on June 5 in a coding room and a major flare up was averted due to efforts of local staff and fire officials, who sprayed water and broke the ceiling to let out the fumes and smoke. 

The coding room housed the BSc scripts of the affiliated and constituent colleges. Specifically, the room had Zoology and Mathematics papers of first and third semester (backlog), Zoology, Botany, Physics and Mathematics of second  and fourth semester (backlog and regular), and Zoology, Botany, Physics and Mathematics (Regular) exams of the fourth semester. 

Meanwhile, the panel suggested a slew of measures to pre-empt any such incidents in future, including augmenting the safety and security measures at the spot evaluation centres, periodic checkup of electrical safety devices, construction of a new building for counting and coding work, replacing the conventional coding system with a bar coding system and posting qualified technical personnel to man the centre. 

The University stated that it regrets the inconvenience caused to students and appealed to them not to believe rumours by vested interests.