Nagpur: The Day 1 of first-ever online exams of Nagpur University saw many final year students complaining about technical snags that forced them to skip the papers. It has came to fore that actually 316 out of 1,584 students couldn’t appear online on Thursday due to OTP-related issues.
Earlier in the day, the university received a plethora of complaints from several aggrieved students after they failed to receive one-time password (OTP) on their mobiles for accessing question papers. Those poured in from all four districts — Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia besides Nagpur.
“After enquiring we came to know that only 18.74% of examinees couldn’t appear in exams due to technical snags, primarily related to OTP. It included 249 of BSc microbiology and 47 of BSc statistics subjects,” Board of Examinations and Evaluation (BoEE) director Prafulla Sable told TOI.
Officials from Promarc Software Limited that developed Pariksha App came under fire after Thursday’s fiasco. They said the firm was unnecessarily dragged into controversy as neither its app nor its server had crashed. “Only 10% of our server was used on Thursday. As the test was conducted on mobiles, there was absolutely no load on it. In fact, we did much better than other universities like Mumbai, Solapur and Gondwana, whose servers crashed on the very first day.”
Endorsing them, Sable informed that their server received a whopping 8,000 SMSs from 1.26pm to 1.38pm from the students regarding OTP. “We never faced this problem during mock tests, else we would have fixed it that time only. After receiving hundreds of complaints, we apprehended that over 50% of the examinees missed exams, but after collecting data, their numbers were found to be very less. We kept less papers on the first three days anticipating such difficulties.”
The aggrieved students, however, aren’t convinced by NU’s explanations. They said they would keep fingers crossed till all papers are completed. “I had my microbiology exam and started login 10 minutes before using the link sent on e-mail id. I keyed in the user id and password as per the hall ticket. But it was showing invalid for some time. Later, I didn’t receive the OTP,” a student said, adding that NU shouldn’t use them for trials and put their careers at stake.
#WHAT HAPPENED
* NU received hundreds of complaints throughout the day on helplines
* Students said they couldn’t appear due to technical snags
* Major issue was failure in receiving OTP for accessing papers
* Subsequently, students were granted extra time of 50 minutes to solve papers
* NU blames service providers for delay in sending OTP on mobiles
* Its server received over 8,000 SMSes for OTP from 1.26pm-1.38pm
* NU cancels OTP provision for appearing in exams from Friday
* It will be holding re-exam for those who couldn’t appear
* Even those who wish to reappear to be allowed
* Missed papers to be conducted on any Sunday
* All examinees told to regularly update Pariksha App
Earlier in the day, the university received a plethora of complaints from several aggrieved students after they failed to receive one-time password (OTP) on their mobiles for accessing question papers. Those poured in from all four districts — Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia besides Nagpur.
“After enquiring we came to know that only 18.74% of examinees couldn’t appear in exams due to technical snags, primarily related to OTP. It included 249 of BSc microbiology and 47 of BSc statistics subjects,” Board of Examinations and Evaluation (BoEE) director Prafulla Sable told TOI.
Officials from Promarc Software Limited that developed Pariksha App came under fire after Thursday’s fiasco. They said the firm was unnecessarily dragged into controversy as neither its app nor its server had crashed. “Only 10% of our server was used on Thursday. As the test was conducted on mobiles, there was absolutely no load on it. In fact, we did much better than other universities like Mumbai, Solapur and Gondwana, whose servers crashed on the very first day.”
Endorsing them, Sable informed that their server received a whopping 8,000 SMSs from 1.26pm to 1.38pm from the students regarding OTP. “We never faced this problem during mock tests, else we would have fixed it that time only. After receiving hundreds of complaints, we apprehended that over 50% of the examinees missed exams, but after collecting data, their numbers were found to be very less. We kept less papers on the first three days anticipating such difficulties.”
The aggrieved students, however, aren’t convinced by NU’s explanations. They said they would keep fingers crossed till all papers are completed. “I had my microbiology exam and started login 10 minutes before using the link sent on e-mail id. I keyed in the user id and password as per the hall ticket. But it was showing invalid for some time. Later, I didn’t receive the OTP,” a student said, adding that NU shouldn’t use them for trials and put their careers at stake.
#WHAT HAPPENED
* NU received hundreds of complaints throughout the day on helplines
* Students said they couldn’t appear due to technical snags
* Major issue was failure in receiving OTP for accessing papers
* Subsequently, students were granted extra time of 50 minutes to solve papers
* NU blames service providers for delay in sending OTP on mobiles
* Its server received over 8,000 SMSes for OTP from 1.26pm-1.38pm
* NU cancels OTP provision for appearing in exams from Friday
* It will be holding re-exam for those who couldn’t appear
* Even those who wish to reappear to be allowed
* Missed papers to be conducted on any Sunday
* All examinees told to regularly update Pariksha App
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