Open Book Examination in pandemic time

The Gauhati University's announcement that all pending examinations will be held in the Open book system in the online mode is aimed at preventing the loss of an academic year of its students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The move is prompted by a long and spiralling second wave pandemic in the state, but not without challenges. The pandemic curve continues to rise alarmingly and as the peak has not yet been reached, the element of uncertainty over the resumption of normal academic activities continues. The University in its notification has stated that a detailed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for conducting the examinations will be published by the Controller of Examinations soon. The Open Book Examination System allows the students to refer to class notes, summaries textbooks, memory aids or other approved materials in the examination environment and answer the questions without help from others. The two different approaches of the open book system in practice are – traditional sit-down examination with access to resources and references approved by examination authorities and take-home examinations in which questions are handed out to the candidates and asked to return the answers within a specified period. The argument advanced against examining only online mode is the poor internet access in rural Assam. The University authorities will face the challenge that internet access does not create any disadvantage to any student. Alternative plans to facilitate every single student to have the same eco-system as the students in urban areas and belonging to families who can afford a digital device and high-speed internet connections are vital to ensure that the primary objective of the examinations is not lost. Every problem has a solution, and the collaborative approach can help find the answer to overcome the problem of internet access. Lend a digital device to an examination candidate campaign may encourage good Samaritans to lend their digital device with internet access on the examination days to the needy candidates within their neighbourhood. The Assam Electronics Development Corporation, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited as well as private internet service providers can be roped in to explore the viability of setting up temporary internet access nodes in a village. Government and private offices can also be approached by the university to provide covid-safe online access to needy students in the nearest village. The University has around 5000 Post Graduate students while colleges affiliated with the university have about 2.5 lakh, undergraduate students. Holding "only online mode" examinations for such a huge number of students are going to be a daunting task. Despite challenges, examining online mode is the safest option left. Conducting offline examinations immediately is ruled out as many students are confined to containment zones in different places and the positivity rate in the state is nearing 10 per cent. The objective of holding examinations in online mode cannot be merely paving the way for the students to move to the next semester. Maintaining the quality of questions as well as evaluation is equally important. The challenge for teachers in an open book system is to set the right questions that will test the comprehension, analytical skills, and critical thinking of the students. The teachers are accustomed to developing examination questionnaire for the traditional sit-down examinations for limited hours which have higher weightage for testing the memory skills. The students are also used to taking traditional sit-down examinations and are dependent on rote learning and which is not going to work in an open book system. The questions in the open book system need to test the conceptual knowledge of the students rather than information and description. The students will also have to be prepared to answer application-based questions in the open book system in which approved textbooks and study materials will not have ready-made answers. The SOP for online Open book examinations will have to ensure that the visually impaired students, who write the traditional sit-down examination with the help of someone, are not disadvantaged. Problems of students who have not been infected but are confined to home quarantined because other family members being infected and without any online access during the examination days will also need to be addressed in the SOP. The SOP must spell out an alternative assessment for such students to avoid confusion and deprivation. Early finalization and publication of the SOP for open-book online examinations will help teachers, students, parents to orient themselves for the mode of examinations. It will also help educationists and educational institutions to come up with pragmatic suggestions well ahead of examinations which are scheduled to be held in June. Gauhati University has taken a bold step to clear the backlogs of examinations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The successful conduct of open book examination in online mode will help build the resilience of the state against disruptions in the academic calendar by the current and future pandemics.