digitalLEARNING-Jan-2010-[14-15]-The Mouse has Eaten the CAT

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50th issue special

The Mouse has Eaten the CAT The recent issue on education that has grabbed most of the newspapers’ headlines and shaken the confidence of the aspiring management gurus of the future is the disruption of the online Common Admission Test (CAT) organised by the 7 Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) across the country resulting in a partial erosion of the credibility of the test as a whole. In spite of its failure, the new online model is a mega initiative possibly leading to a transparent e-governance system emerging in the education system.

Every year a large number of students opt for the test to get admission in the prestigious B-Schools in India including IIMs in their zeal to pursue a promising career for themselves, primarily in the corporate sector, both nationally as well as globally. Millions of students aspiring to clear the test go through tremendous and rigorous hard work and labour for months spending a substantial amount of money on tuitions and other preparatory work. The decision of the IIMs to move from the traditional three-decade old paper and pencil method of selection of candidates for 3,000-odd seats to the computer-based method is revolutionary in more ways. Computer-based testing is believed to have a transformative impact on education by expanding access, enhancing test development process, and producing results, which are representative of the capabilities of the test administrators.

The test, for the first time, had been organised and administered online and had been plagued by server crash on the first three days of the overall 10 days test scheduled between November 28 and December 7, 2009, with more than 2,40,000 candidates competing across 104 locations in 32 cities in India.

The process of organising the test was outsourced via a $40-million contract to Prometric, a renowned US firm with acclaimed expertise in the field. After the all-round disappointment, Prometric declared that two viruses — Conflicker 14

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File photo: IIM, Ahmedabad

Computer-based testing is believed to have a transformative impact on education by expanding access, enhancing test development process, and producing results, which are representative of the capabilities of the test administrators.

50th issue special and W32.Nimda - had crippled the systems of several test centres leading to the systems crashing. More than 18 per cent of the total applicants were prevented from completing their test. Though presently a failure, the transformation from the conventional paper and pencil method to the online method is an appreciable effort

The online CAT exam is the first baby step in application of IT beyond the private sector and will also help build a database of applicants, over years, and correlate the performance levels of successful applicants and their actual performance at IIMs.

PRESSING CONCERNS

held across the world in a staggered manner enabling users to take the test at their convenience. The backup operations for the online examination systems need to be in place. However, the online CAT exam is the first baby step in application of IT beyond the private sector and will also help build a database of applicants, over years, and correlate the performance levels of successful applicants and their actual performance at IIMs.

Experts had expressed their concerns that the test at the large scale format should be launched only after the students had enough exposure in the matter. Inadequate preparations and insufficient planning by the organisers while setting up and implementing the process is one of the instrumental factors in the entire event.

Organisations in the field of conducting online courses and tests are of the opinion that perhaps Prometric was not adequately prepared to handle the load of a large number of candidates on its servers. However, the CAT experience certainly underlines the importance of protecting the systems against viruses.

This has also brought forth the claims under question by leading anti-virus companies that they can protect any programme against virus attacks. The recent episode entails that no computer

WHAT CAN BE DONE According to experts, these cases point to a remarkable degree of determination on the part of US law enforcement to pursue wrongdoers. “It is not as if there are no cases in which they had not shown such zeal. Even then, a few convictions in court make a lot of difference to a worsening situation on the cyber crime front. It is this kind of enthusiasm that I

which determine the fate of hundreds of thousands of children, adequate safeguards be built to protect the interests of the students. “The technology for online testing is very stable.” Pande adds.

LESSONS FOR B-SCHOOLS After the confusion around the Common Admission Test (CAT), other management institutes are taking no chances with their online tests. According to the institutes the plan is to have a mock test at least a month before the actual test. The institute will work with approved testing agencies having trained and certified test administrators at every centre to enhance the quality of exam taking for a large number of candidates by providing them an improved testing environment.

Undeniably, the online CAT examination was initiated with the right intent and has set the right and progressive direction in the history of education, keeping the increasing CAT aspirant population in the age of new emerging and innovative technology.

THE REQUIREMENTS

system is one hundred per cent proof against virus attacks.

Instead of channelising the blame to the US firm and then to the viruses, the systemic structure back home is also partially responsible for the entire crisis.

Though a lot of international online tests like the GRE have been online for a while, it is a lot more complicated when it comes to doing something similar in India. CAT is executed within a short timeframe for all candidates, while the GRE is

would like to see in India,” says Madan Padaki, Co-Founder and CEO, MeritTrac.

He recommended 5 core pieces that need to be addressed when conducting online testing: a) Developing the testing software for India; b) Conducting extensive “dryruns,” c) Trained proctors at test centres, d) Being accessible to applicants, e) Robust Project Management According to Rohit Pande, CEO, Classteacher Learning Systems, for high stake tests such as the CAT

The education system needs a fullfledged e-governance system that goes beyond handling online admissions, generating fee bills to recording attendance and posting results. The country needs to graduate to a seamless system of education that offers relevant and most up-to-date content and allows mobility of students across streams, across colleges and above all inclusion of those who have no access to education.

Additionally, tremendous training of the selected staff, proper equipping of the various examination centers and effective coordination of the exam are the three basic steps that are most imperative for implementing e-governance properly in the widely dispersed education scenario of our country. Such an efficient egovernance system will ultimately pave way for the inclusion of even those unfortunate childhoods, which are now kept far away from the main stream. \\ digital LEARNING

january 2010

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