IGNOU seeks report from Yahoo on collapse of on-line exam

Updated on: Tuesday, November 03, 2009

New Delhi: In the wake of the collapse of its on-line entrance exam for engineering programmes, the IGNOU today asked the service provider Yahoo! to submit a report explaining what went wrong leading to the crash.

The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), which offers distance education to over 18 lakh students, failed to conduct the on-line entrance on Saturday as the on-line system collapsed minutes after the exam started. The university was using the server of Yahoo! for this test.

'Today we have asked the Yahoo! to submit a report explaining what went wrong leading to the collapse of the on-line entrance exam. We have asked for the log which will be examined to find out how the on-line testing crashed,' the examination coordinator Prof Shiv Kumar Vyas said.

About 9,350 students were supposed to appear in the test for admission into the diploma and degree programmes in engineering under IGNOU. 'The exam had started and immediately collapsed as it could not survive the hits. We are not ruling out possibility of a sabotage by certain elements. The picture will be clear after our technical committee examines the log,' he said.

The on-line exam was supposed to be held in seven subjects - English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Assamese and Marathi.

Vyas did not rule out the possibility of holding the test through the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) system.'First we will examine if the test could be held on-line again. If we find it is not possible, we may hold the test in the OMR system,' he said.

The test was being held at 80 centres across the country. Vyas said that if the committee comes across any sabotage, the authorities will take the issue with police for appropriate action.

The entire matter is being looked into by the examination committee of the university.

IGNOU seeks report from Yahoo on collapse of on-line exam

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