Jadavpur University is likely to assess its engineering students in the eighth semester through home assignments and viva held over the phone because many don’t have access to the computer at home and cannot participate in online tests, said a university official.

The dean of engineering faculty at JU, Sibapriya Mukherjee, has sent a mail to all departmental heads, seeking suggestions on how to hold the exams without asking students to be present on the campus or write the papers online.

A university official said 50 per cent weightage of the eighth semester exams could be on mid-term assessment and 25 per cent on assessment of performance, with pre-final semester cumulative grade point average (CGPA) being taken as the point of reference.

“The remaining weightage could be on the score of the assignments that will be sent to all students by email or by other suitable means,” the official said.

The final semester viva might be conducted through conference call or WhatsApp call.

“We have asked engineering teachers to suggest what could be the model, considering that the assessment would be offline,” said Mukherjee.

Vice-chancellor Suranjan Das had told the teachers early last month that evaluation/ grading for the internals must not be done through the online mode, as the facilities may not be available to all students at home.

“We want to devise a model that takes cognisance of the digital divide and gives the students a level playing field. An announcement on this will be made soon,” Das said.