Calcutta University will conduct open-book examinations for final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students where they will have 24 hours to upload answers.

The university will email the questions to the undergraduate colleges.

The individual colleges will send the questions through email or over WhatApp to examinees at the start of the examination.

Students will have to upload the answers in PDF format and send them via email or WhatsApp to their colleges within 24 hours, vice-chancellor Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee said.

In case any student is not able to manage a smart device or unable to upload the answers because of poor connectivity, he or she will have to write the answers on paper and submit the hardcopy in sealed envelope to his or her college within 24 hours, the vice-chancellor said.

The individual undergraduate colleges will evaluate the answers of their own students. The teachers of the respective colleges will be engaged for evaluating the answers of the students.

The undergraduate examinations will start on October 1 and continue till October 8, the vice-chancellor told Metro.

All the 68 postgraduate departments of the university have been advised to complete the examinations within October 8, she said.

The time-table of both the exams will be announced within a few days, the vice-chancellor said.

The marks of all the undergraduate and postgraduate examinations will have to be sent to the controller of examination department of the university by every college within October 18.

The results of the examinations of all the streams will be declared within October 31.

This is the first time the university has adopted the open-book examination for all undergraduate and postgraduate courses. It was not heard of in the 163-year old history of the university.

It has been adopted as an alternative measure only for the current year in view of the pandemic, a professor of the university said.

There will be no change in the pattern of the undergraduate questions to be provided to the students.

But the postgraduate departments will be advised to change the question pattern and incorporate more “analytical” questions since the examination will be on open-book mode, an official said.

The university may consider bringing in some changes in the marking pattern of the undergraduate examinations because students will be given 24 hours for uploading the answers, an official of the university said.

“Students can take the help of private tutors or friends for writing the answers.. We need to ensure that the evaluation of the answers is held in a fair manner,” the official said.

Postgraduate students will be examined the same way and they too will have to upload the answers within 24 hours.

The departments will evaluate the answers and have to send the marks to the controller of examinations department within October 18.

More than 1.10 lakh examinees will appear for the undergraduate and post graduate examinations, an official said.

The decisions were taken at a meeting of the university’s faculty council on Wednesday.

The time-table and the other instructions for the colleges, teachers and students will be announced after discussing the faculty council decisions at the university’s syndicate body. The meeting of the syndicate will be held soon, the vice-chancellor said.

The examinations in each subject will be held on 100 percent marks allotted in the papers.

“Our target is to declare the results within October 31. But we can declare the results of a particular course a few days before the targeted date if all the marks reach us before October 18,” she said.

The third-year BA and BSc exams under the 1+1+1 system and the final (sixth) semester examinations in BCom were slated in April but they got deferred because of Covid-19.

The final year (fourth) semester postgraduate examinations also got deferred.

Education minister Partha Chatterjee had said on Monday that the final year undergraduate and postgraduate examinations will have to be conducted by the universities within October 1 and 18 and the results will have to be declared within October 31.