IIT Bhubaneswar is set to conduct the end-semester exams online this year — a decision that is testing the skills of the institute in addressing the concerns of several students.

The students are worried about possible glitches, difficulty in arranging gadgets, poor Internet connectivity and consequential fallout on job offers.

The authorities have defended the decision and sought to allay the fears of students who have taken to social media to articulate their concerns, tagging human resource development minister Ramesh Pokhriyal.

According to the “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)” on the website of IIT Bhubaneswar, every student needs to have a laptop or a desktop and two cellphones. On May 9, the institute had conducted a mock online test, asking each student to be prepared with one laptop or desktop with a webcam, Windows operating system and an Internet connection and two smartphones with Internet facility.

For the mock test, the students needed to install a software called Wheebox on their laptops or desktops. They had to use one of the smartphones with Internet connection and QR code scanner to upload their written answers. The other smartphone was required to connect with the invigilator on Google Meet.

Several students told this newspaper that their teachers had said the same procedure would be followed during the actual exams, which are to begin on June 24.

In response to a question from The Telegraph about whether the requirement of gadgets would be the same as the mock test, IIT registrar Subodh Kumar replied via email: “Not exactly, not all the gadgets your email mentioned can be termed essential.”

Nearly 350 students of the final-year BTech and MTech programmes are eligible to appear for the exams. Around 240 students took the mock test while the remaining 110 could not because of lack of access to the required gadgets.

Later, during a survey conducted by students’ representatives, 65 per cent of the 257 respondents said they could not arrange the logistics. To another question if they could access the exam questions, 29 per cent replied in the negative while 42 per cent said they could not arrange the necessary set-ups.

“Most of the students have got job offers. If we fail to appear for the exams, we won’t be able to furnish our transcripts (mark sheets) and provisional pass certificates. The companies may revoke the offers for no fault of ours,” a student said. The companies that have offered them jobs expect the students to report in the first or second week of July with either a transcript or a provisional certificate.

“We are not confident if the examination can be smoothly held online. In the mock test, I could not register for one hour (because of a glitch in the Wheebox software). We could face the same problems during the actual test,” another student said.

Several students said those in small towns and villages would find it difficult to get access to the gadgets and would also be hobbled by poor Internet connectivity.

According to the IIT website, another round of online exams will be conducted in the last week of July or the first week of August for those students who will not be able to appear for the first round because of lack of facilities. Those who won’t be able to appear for the second round too would have the option of coming to the campus and taking the exams online from rooms of a designated hostel.

A student said about 80 per cent of the fourth-year BTech students had left the campus amid the pandemic and it would be difficult for them to return for the exams under the current circumstances.

Kumar, the IIT registrar, said in the email response: “Difficult glitches do not hold true since many of the IITs have successfully conducted online mode of examinations. There is no arbitrariness in the unanimous decision of the Senate. No student is going to lose job since we have provided options to students.”

Several other institutes such as IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Roorkee have already decided to award grades to the final-year students based on the mid-semester exams, quizzes, assignments and projects.

Students of IIT Bhubaneswar have demand that the same procedure be followed at their institute too. Several other IITs are yet to take the final decision on exams.