Resonance Eduventures Ltd.

: JEE (Advanced): Going 100% ONLINE from 2018

My Observations on this BIG Change:
1. What is JEE (Advanced):
a. JEE (Advanced) stands for Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) -Advanced: It is an
entrance examination conducted across India for admission in under-graduate
courses/programmes at premiere Engineering institutes of India i.e. Indian
Institutes of Technology (IITs).
b. There are 23 IITs in India with approx. 11000 seats to offer (2017-18 session) for
Under-graduate studies in various disciplines of Engineering & technology.
c. Out of these 11000 odd seats; approx. 50% are available in Open Category while
remaining 50% seats are available for various category students like OBC (NCL),
SC, ST & PD etc.
d. Indian students who have passed their Class-XII in Science-Maths stream either
with 75% in his/her Board Examination (65% for Category students) or he/she is
amongst the Top-20%ile of respective Board/Category can appear in
JEE(Advanced) examination.
e. A student gets only two attempts to crack the examination.

2. Why it is so important?:
a. IITs are Indias Best Engineering & Technology institutes and supported by Govt of
India (given status of Institutes of National Importance).
b. IITs have world-wide recognition for their brilliant students/alums, excellent
faculty, academic environment & world-class campuses.
c. The cost of studies at IITs is highly subsidized; hence countrys top talent put
his/her best efforts to get into IITs. It makes admission process of IITs very
competitive and lakhs of students every year compete for admission in IITs.
d. Worlds best companies/Top MNCs heavily recruit fresh talent from IITs every year
with lucrative/hefty pay packages & promising work environment & career growth
opportunities.
e. IITs also provide excellent learning environment and opportunities for
entrepreneurship, start-up and higher studies in India & abroad.

3. What is Existing System:

a. JEE (Main) is the pre-cursor or qualifying examination for JEE-Advanced.
b. Approx. 12-13 lac students appear in JEE (Main) every year (2017 applicants)
which is conducted in both Offline (Pen & Paper) as well as Online (Computer-
based) mode in the first week of April. Currently approx. 10-12% students are
taking JEE (Main) examination in ONLINE mode while others are sticking to the
traditional OFFLINE mode.

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 c. Approx 2,20,000 students are declared qualified for JEE-Advanced which has so
far been an offline (pan & paper) examination till 2017 & is conducted in Third
week of May. At present optical mark reading (OMR) sheets are used in JEE
(Advanced); which need to be filled using pen or pencils and are evaluated by
machines.
d. The questions asked in JEE (Advanced) are from Physics, Chemistry & Maths (Class-
XII syllabus as defined). The paper pattern of JEE (Advanced) is very tough and
involves variety of questions in multiple patters to test students conceptual
knowledge and analytical capabilities.
e. The Merit of JEE (Advanced) or students performance in JEE (Advanced) is used
for allotment of seats/Branches in various IITs.

4. All about the Change announced:

a. The JEE (Advanced) examination will be 100% ONLINE from year 2018.
b. 100% means all the students who will qualify from JEE (Main) to JEE (Advanced)
shall be asked to write the examination ONLINE.
c. In the online mode, students will take up the examination at designated centres
where they need to answer the questions on a computer instead of using pen and
paper. ONLINE means the examination paper can be viewed on a Computer screen
and the questions are to be attempted/answered and marked on the computer
itself by using computer mouse.
d. Thus it will put an end to use of Pen (to mark bubbles in OMR) and Paper (the
Printed Examination Paper) in the examination hall. However use of pen & paper
may be allowed in the examination for rough-work with certain conditions.
e. The JEE (main) shall still be conducted in both OFFLINE (Pen & Paper mode) &
ONLINE (Computer-based mode) and may be opted by the student but JEE
(Advanced) will be 100% ONLINE.

5. Why this change:

a. This year (2017), several candidates had raised objections over some questions in
both the papers of JEE Advanced being incorrect.
b. Following this, IIT Madras had decided to award 18 bonus marks to all the students
appearing in the examination, irrespective of whether they had attempted the
questions.
c. This was challenged by a student and the matter was taken up in the Supreme
Court. This invited lot of criticism for IITs and even the SC put the counseling
process on hold for few days.
d. In the larger interest of students; the SC asked IITs to plug such loop holes in future
and asked to submit an action plan through an affidavit.

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 e. IIT-Madras (The conducting IIT for JEE-Advanced 2017) had filed an affidavit in the
court how such mistakes will not be made in the future. One of the ways included
was conducting the exam online.

6. Who has done the change:

a. The JEE (Advanced) examination is conducted by a Joint Admission Board (JAB)
formed by various IITs and every year one IIT heads the JAB in a rotational manner.
b. JAB is the apex body which every year decides about the nature of the
examination.
c. JAB has been known for its experiment with the examination through small or big
changes over a period of past few years.
d. JAB at its latest meeting on August 20, 2017 (Sunday), has decided that JEE
(Advanced) will be conducted in ONLINE mode completely from 2018.
e. Further information regarding the examination will be provided by the JAB in due
course.

7. Pros of the Change:

a. IITs would be able to declare results faster.
b. It will provide Greater transparency and accuracy.
c. The evaluation process will be better, more accurate & error-free.
d. It will have very less scope for printing and & translation related errors.
e. It will also take care of security issues because there will be no scope for question
paper leaks.
f. The online version of the test will make logistics easier & the printing costs would
drop significantly.
g. A multi-colour on-screen window or panel to view the status of questions at any
time as attempted, visited, unanswered and to be reviewed later etc.
h. In an ONLINE examination; student can save sometime by using computer mouse
and clicking the answers quickly instead of filling the bubbles with the help of a
pen in an offline examination.
i. In an offline examination; students were unable to correct their answers after
bubbling the answers [fill in multiple-choice answers in the written test], but now
[With the online mode] they can go back and change answers if they want to (can
edit, re-edit multiple times).
j. To design the question paper scientifically; an online examination will take into
account the complexity level of the paper while setting the questions ranging from
simple to difficult. Further, post- paper analysis can also be done in multiple ways.

8. Cons of the Change:

a. The change itself is painful. The transition from offline to Online is resisted by
many students and shall be a hurdle for many.

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 b. Students from rural areas or small towns might be at disadvantage atleast for few
years as they are not exposed to computers the way urban students are.
c. With the involvement of technology; online examination might witness some
technical snags or glitches during the examination period (software or hardware
issues).
d. Some infrastructure issue like power failure might also happen on the day of
examination.
e. The student will not get hard copy of question paper for online examination which
otherwise used to be available in offline examination.

9. Challenges & Opportunities:

Challenges:
a. For IITs:
i. First-time at such a big scale.
ii. Logistics to conduct the examination on a single day in single shift.
iii. Prior training to applicants to appear in mock-tests.
b. For students:
i. Mindset towards online testing.
ii. Exposure to computers.
iii. Practice of online testing
c. For Schools:
i. Computer Infrastructure.
ii. Testing Platform.
iii. Motivation to students to practice online testing
d. For Coaching Institutes:
i. Computer Infrastructure at a big scale. (Investment)
ii. Sophisticated & robust Testing Platform (Investment)
iii. Changing the mindset of students and academicians (faculty)
e. For Parents:
i. Another reason of worry to overcome.
ii. Motivating their ward (change in the mindset)
iii. Additional Spending on Online Testing practice.
Opportunities:
For Software/App Development Companies & developers.
For IT infrastructure companies & institutions.
For Online Testing Trainers & Instructors.
For Data Analytics & Data Analyzers
For content developers & providers.

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 10. Concluding Remarks:

a. Online Testing is a reality now and it is the future of competitive examinations.

b. Several examinations have already gone online in past few years; so it was
expected from IITs (technology institutions) to conduct their entrance
examination in online mode too.
c. IITs have been thinking about going online for last three or four years. Earlier, it
didnt look easy as there were difficulties like a number of places where they can
conduct the examination (as number of applicants were very high: over five lakh
in its IIT-JEE avatar). Now, it looks feasible to conduct online exam for over two
lakh candidates
d. Now once announced; it should be welcomed and accepted wholeheartedly.
e. The Internet & IT infrastructure is well-placed now a days and can accommodate
the change without much problems.
f. The education eco-system (schools, coaching institutes and teachers/instructors)
should gear up towards online testing quicker than ever in the past.
g. To ensure students do not face any problem in taking the test online, provision for
sufficient training should be be made where they are allowed to take mock tests
and operate the system.
h. Schools & coaching institutes should also provide an opportunity to the students
so that they can use the computers.
i. It will have backlash on traditional teaching methodology (chalk & talk).
j. It will almost bring off-line examination related issues to almost zero.

Prepared By:
Manoj Kumar Sharma, Executive Director, Resonance Eduventures Ltd., Kota (Rajasthan)

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