Gopal Devanahalli talks to MUSKAAN JAIN about the benefits of digital evaluation and how their on-screen marking solution TracMARKS is making a difference
How is the talent assessment done by MeritTRACij
For over 17 years, we have been helping the corporations in hiring, training and promotion by providing them with assessments for talent selection. These assessments are in three areas — functional assessment, abilities assessment which consists of aptitude test, communication skills and others, and behavioural assessment. We also help the Government in hiring and assist international testing agencies like TOEFl and GRE whose exams we administer in India.
How does this workij
We administer the test and create the questions too, as per the requirement of the client. We are certified by ISO, CMMI and CERT-IN. For computer-based exams, we have a software called Pariksha and with the help of TracMARKS, we do digital evaluation through a team of content experts who make questions, psychometricians for behavioural tests, statisticians and an operations team.
What about school Boardsij
Evaluators check the answer sheets but in ‘on-screen’ digital format. The answer scripts first come to the centre with the university representative where they get scanned after separating the page that has student information on it. We use barcodes to identify the scripts. The scanning capacity is scaled up or down according to the expected volume of the scripts which is told by the university beforehand.
Tell us about the facultyij
There are different faculties to evaluate different question papers/subjects. Then, we do mapping of the scripts to the question papers and the question papers to the faculty. The scripts are then made available for the faculty for evaluation through logins. For authentication of the approved list of faculty, we use login passwords and OTP system on the listed mobile numbers. The evaluators can then download the scripts from the pool of scripts and start evaluation. The evaluated script automatically disappears from the pool. After all that, a PDF form of the evaluated script is generated and given to the university.
How is the marking doneij
Every Board and university has a policy of moderation of marks. That can also be built into the system.
Why do we need to move towards digital evaluationij
What typically happens with a pen and paper test either in a college or a school Board scenario is the answer scripts have to be physically moved to the centres and then to the evaluators for marking. There are many problems faced during this process like delay in the transportation of answer scripts, results also gets delayed, the scripts can get missed or lost, they may reach the wrong place, there can be damage during transit, they can also be mixed or replaced sometimes because the names are removed before the evaluation. There are also totalling errors, answers unchecked and more. Digital evaluation can be put in place to avoid many of these problems and make the process of evaluation easier.
What are its benefitsij
First, it can improve accuracy and transparency. The evaluators can’t give more marks than the total marks of the question which is an error that occurs sometimes. Second, totalling is done automatically by the system. So, the errors go away. You can know the exact time spent by the evaluator on every script.
Third, there’s speed as the answer scripts need not be shipped to multiple places. They get scanned quickly and made available. At the same time, it is highly secure. Four, the answer scripts can’t be tampered with. So, there is no scope of corruption broadly. Making evaluation digital helps getting a lot of analytics which is otherwise time-consuming.