Manipal University introduces digital exam system

Bengaluru, Sept 30: Manipal University has decided to implement the digital examination system on a large scale.

The university had introduced the digital examination system two years ago and there was overwhelming response from students.

Under the digital examination system, the university has given electronic tablets to students which are specially designed devices with special surface for a writing experience. There are features like copy, redo, rough, undo, cut, note. Ruled and unruled pages are available to help students answer questions. The tab has a fingerprint scanner.

The university has saved around Rs 30 lakh besides stationery by implementing the digital examination process with the help of electronic tablets.

The university plans to distribute 25,000 tablets by 2018 and expand the digital coverage.

Except students of Manipal Institute of Technology, students of all other institutes under Manipal University are using tablets for assignments and examinations.

The university has planned to distribute tabs during admission process. These tablets will have safety features and won’t support malpractice. Soon, they will be part of the regular curriculum where students will be issued tabs during admission itself.

“We have around 20 institutions with over 33,536 students at any point of time. Given that students have regular assignments almost every month and semester exams at regular intervals, there was a lot of paper being used and it was an uphill task for our faculty to keep tabs of the data. We wanted a dedicated platform to keep track of all our students’ submissions and hence e-pad was created,” Dr Narayana Sabhahit, Registrar, Manipal University said.

“The move towards digital examination was taken in the wake of deteriorating environment conditions. As of now it is introduced to all streams except engineering, since it requires more technical features,” he stated.