Changing Paradigms

Exam results through the Internet

Neeta Verma Senior Technical Director Sonal Kalra Editor, Informatics National Informatics Centre

In the decades spanning 60’s and 70’s in the 20th century, exam results, especially those of the State School Boards meant, students and parents spending sleepless nights waiting for the early morning arrival of the ‘Gazette’ carrying the result. With the change in the pattern of Education Boards all over the country, the concepts of +2 results and significant increase in the entrance exams for various professional courses came into fore, not only enhancing the number and magnitude of examinations but also bringing tough competition in the academic scenario. Till a few years back, it was a common sight to see the students thronging notice boards trying to find their roll number in the list of successful candidates. The emergence of Internet has seemed to transform the above scenario as it has made it possible for students to check their Exam Result in the comfort and safety of their own homes with the ‘moment’, just a mouse click away…

The practice of using the World Wide Web as a medium to publish examination results is not new, especially in countries with a high rate of Internet usage. The concept picked up in India during the past 4-5 years with the increased proliferation of Web and its reach into the Indian homes and Cyber cafes. The organization behind the vast exercise of publishing the various exam results on the Internet in India is National Informatics Centre (NIC), a part of the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology. Through its nationwide infrastructure present in all States, Union Territories (UTs) and Districts of India, NIC has been publishing and disseminating the results of several academic and recruitment examinations through the Internet every year.

Current scenario
In the education system currently prevailing in India, there are State Education Boards in various States /UTs apart from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Indian Council of School Education (ICSE) at the All India Level. These Education Boards conduct examinations at the level of matriculation (class 10th) and + 2 (class 12th). Some state boards also conduct exams at the level of class 8th. Millions of students appear for these examinations every year and wait for the results with baited breath. The results of the examinations are prepared, compiled and declared by the respective boards by sending the detailed mark lists of the students to the respective schools. For the past four to five years, these school results and many others including entrance examinations for professional courses are being simultaneously released on the Internet as soon as it is ready on the exam results web portal (http://results.nic.in) developed for this purpose by NIC.

The process
The entire process of publishing results on the World Wide Web comprises a number of steps and stages. Based on a thorough research and its IT expertise, NIC has acquired the requisite know-how and prepared a generic software for publishing results which has been made available to all the NIC centres across India with appropriate guidelines to use/customise the software as per varying requirements of different examination agencies.

Exam Results being a sensitive issue on which the future and career of millions hinges, it is imperative to ensure that the information is absolutely accurate and reaches the intended target audience with minimum effort and delay. As a first step, the NIC centres in various states and UTs, in consultation with the concerned State Education Board, customise the software in terms of information requirement, lay-out, number/type of reports to be generated, etc. The result data, once prepared in the digital form by the respective Board is then transported in the appropriate format on to the results servers being maintained by NIC. All this invariably involves a sound infrastructure set-up geared to meet the huge anticipated traffic, especially during peak hours and also having appropriate back-up and contingency measures. NIC has established ICT infrastructure comprising a series of state-of-the-art dedicated web and database servers along with latest applications and performance tuned network devices for this purpose.

Important announcements, both prior to the declaration of the result and upon its launch on the Internet, are posted on the web portal informing students, who can then access their results using a simple browser based interface by entering their roll number at the requisite place. The seemingly simple exercise takes a lot of hard work, technical co-ordination and seamless planning in the background to meet the ever increasing expectations of the examination boards as well as aspiring candidates.

Additional delivery channels
Realising the present status of Internet access in India and the need to make this information reach even the remotest corners of the Country, the exam results are being disseminated using multiple channels so that more and more students can access them with minimal time and effort. Therefore, besides the World Wide Web, the results are also being made available through IVRS, SMS and Email.

• IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System) In IVRS, the caller dials a given telephone number and the computer plays the part of an operator giving out the information requested, in recorded or synthesized voice. The server is configured to accept calls with the help of dedicated CTI (computer telephony interface) software and hardware. The calls can be placed from any standard telephone instrument. A large number of students access their results using this channel.
• Short Message Service The Short Message Service (SMS) is the technology to send and receive short text messages from one mobile phone to another mobile phone. SMS based technology is not only cost effective but extremely efficient too.

Considering the high density of cell phone users in India, various results are now being provided to the students through the SMS on the mobile phones. The users have to type a specified message code followed by the Roll Number and send the message to a designated number to obtain the results.

• E-mail The anxious students are also able to receive their results in their individual mailboxes, for which they had to pre-register with the Results web portal. Apart from this, complete school wise results are also being sent to the various schools through email on pre registration.

Success Indicators
The examination results declared by NIC on its various servers over the past few years have received a large number of hits from anxious students, teachers, parents, school authorities and other interested stakeholders. In 2003 itself, a whooping 26.7 million hits were received on the website hosting the Central Board of Secondary Education Results. While 3,30,000 marksheets were emailed into the individual students’ mailboxes, 3,80,000 and 2,10,000 results were disseminated through IVRS and SMS respectively.

Within a few moments of the declarations of Results, hits were seen flowing in from all over the country (including the remotest corners through the cyber cafes/ community centres) as well as from other parts of the world.

Impact
The Technological advancements and progress in the field of Information and Communication Technologies has come to change the very way we lead our lives. The whole concept of declaring Exam Results over the Net has done more to promote the Internet awareness and usage than most other conventional promotion strategies. The sensitivity of the issue and the anxiety factor associated with the very concept of Exam Results made the exercise popular even in areas known to be having very low Internet penetration. Even in the case of North Eastern States marred by adverse terrain and climatic conditions, students were seen thronging the CIC Centres set-up by the Department of Information Technology (http://www.cic.nic.in) anxiously awaiting their marksheet to appear on the computer screen.

Reports from States like Uttar Pradesh indicated that students were ecstatic on receiving the marksheets at the same time as declaration of the Results, something which took many days earlier since the marksheets used to arrive by Post. This also meant that the students did not have to wait any longer to apply for admissions into Colleges for further studies.

Indirect beneficiaries of the whole exercise turned out to be the Cyber Café owners as their business got a tremendous boost whenever the Results were declared on the Net. Considering the fact that average ownership of Home PCs in India is still quite low, students were seen waiting at the cyber cafes for their turn to check their results. This has again resulted in a sharp increase in Internet usage as Cyber Café Managers report that many students who had visited a cyber café for the first time to check their exam results eventually ended up becoming regular net surfers.

Encouraged by the success of this initiative, many Institutions/Universities/Boards have enhanced the level and type of usage of ICT in the ambit of their total operations and at the same time, the familiarity and trust level of various stakeholders (officials, students, teachers, parents etc) in technology has significantly gone up. Some of the Boards are now delivering the Admit Cards to the students through the Net. The Counselling for admissions after the AIEEE-2003 (All India Engineering/Pharmacy/Architecture Entrance Exam) was carried out online and students can also submit the application forms for the next year through the website. With a large number of exam related activities coming into the online arena, we are witnessing a paradigm shift and the future is likely to herald a wider utilization of ICT applications in the education sector.