Despite chaos, MU sticks to OSM

Mumbai: The online On Screen Marking (OSM) system that the University of Mumbai (MU) used to assess the final year examinations conducted in March-April, which allegedly led to a four-month delay in the announcement of the results, will again be deployed in the upcoming winter examinations.

The delay caused by the OSM system also led to the subsequent removal of MU vice-chancellor Dr Sanjay Deshmukh.

To avoid any kind of error in the assessment of the winter examinations, MU said it has identified loopholes, rectified glitches, tested new systems and improved the process.

To start with, the ‘Master Database’ that has been created by MU that will have the complete list of the students, their stream, subjects, teachers, and dates of examination will be handed over to MeritTrac, the company that is managing the OSM.

Around 14,000 teachers are tagged for the assessment process for the winter examination. This time MU has taken teachers’ email ID, contact and bank account details in order to be in touch with them throughout the entire assessment session.

“The entire process has been tested by me, personally,” said Dr Arjun Ghatule, in-charge controller of examinations and evaluation.

Dr Devanand Shinde, acting VC of MU, said the varsity planned all new technicalities after considering suggestions and feedbacks from students, teachers and principals.

Though the varsity seems confident about its plans, students groups are still apprehensive.

“All these new plans were told to us by Deshmukh sir too! But what happened? Nothing went well and only students suffered big time. If this time the same thing happens, the entire University is going to suffer,” said Shristi Jhadhav, an MU student.

Shaheen Shaikh, an M.Com student, said, “A decision like this is pure stupidity as you just saw what the online assessment did in the summer exams. If even after this, they chose the same company and procedure.”

One of the teachers who will be involved in the assessment of exam papers said he has still not been informed about the development. “I am in my Diwali vacation, and my college is reopening on November 8 and so maybe they will inform the new changes then,” he said.

Sachin Pawar, president of Students Law Council of MU, said, “They (MU) are again playing with the lives of the students... First of all they haven’t lowered the exam fees which they doubled, then they did not look into the results of revaluation students and now they are so stubborn about OSM.”