Monday, Jun 29, 2009
Chennai: The first online examination for entrance to medical and surgical super speciality courses in the State ended in chaos on Sunday, as software glitches resulted in its cancellation.

“From the beginning, there were problems. When I entered my registration number and verified my details, instead of leading to the question paper, the computer immediately showed my score as zero,” said a consulting physician, who attempted the DM examination in the morning session. When he complained to the invigilators, he was given a new computer and told to try again.

He succeeded in completing the examination, helped by the tutorial on online examinations. However, when he finished the paper and attempted to review his answers, he ran into problems again.

Computer errors
“It showed that I had selected ‘B’ for all the [multiple choice] questions. The computer was making errors with our answers…There was chaos for the last half hour as students were shouting all over the hall and invigilators were not able to help us,” he said.

Other students complained that the system closed the examination after just five questions or failed to convert the score correctly.

The agitated candidates demanded that they be given a conventional paper and pencil examination instead, resulting in the Directorate of Medical Education indefinitely postponing the examination.

“There was some virus because of a mismatch between the computer and the software…The software was outsourced by the Selection Committee,” said S. Vinayagam, director of medical education.

“Also, some doctors were not proficient in handling the computer…They became apprehensive even though we promised to rectify the problem within half an hour.”

Exam in July
The examination will now be held in July third or fourth week, he said.