Symbiosis management students take exams on tablets

PUNE: In a first, the business management students of Symbiosis University took their mid-term exams on tablets.
The Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM) decided to go paperless for the exam. Every student was given a tablet with inbuilt question paper and a stylus to write on.
As many as 200 students appeared for the mid-term exams, and the college had rented out tablets for the purpose.Director of SIBM Pune, R Raman, said that the use of tablets has benefitted in many ways, including saving time on assessment. “In case a student has queries regarding the marks awarded to him/her, then there is a provision to respond on the answer itself," he said. Raman said that the initiative is a green one as the use of paper has been eliminated completely. He said that a student writes 15 papers, and for each paper about 40 pages are used.
The SIBM director said that the security aspect has also been handled well through the software in the tablet, and there is no room for malpractices as the thumb impression of every student is used to unlock the device.
A student, Mitali Ambaskar, said, "Using the device to write the exam was fun! I wrote the subjective papers as well as papers requiring extensive calculations but never faced any problem!”
Another student, Kunal Gupta, said, "Drawing diagrams and figures is easy and saves us time during exams. I didn't have to carry my colour pens this time as I could make use of different colours on the device to shade specific answers.” “Totalling the marks and allotting them for every question on the index paper of a question paper was a tedious job. With paperless exam, it has made life easy for teachers,”Ravi Kumar, a faculty member, said.