Online Vs Offline Exam - Which is Better?

Online Vs Offline Exam- The mode of learning and examination has undergone significant changes in the education system over the last decade. Educational institutions are slowly moving into online teaching and education, which in a way, is changing the perception of learning among students and parents. Students often raise a query about which is better, an online or offline exam. Conducting the exam online has many benefits like less operational and administrative cost, no security threats and use of unfair means (cheating), and feasibility to students and organizers. Online exams have also shortened the timeline of examining the answers sheets and formulating the results besides its numerous other benefits. Here in this article, we’re discussing the “Online vs Offline Exam - Which is Better?”.

Online Examination - What and How?

Online examinations are becoming extremely popular these days with many universities, institutes and competitive examination bodies switching from the Pen and paper-based test. An online examination is an exam conducted on a computer with no physical question paper. Online exams are tests with Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) where candidates have to select the right answer among the four available options and mark on the virtual answer sheet.

Online exams, also known as Computer Based Test (CBT) are very beneficial to the organizers as it has zero risk of security or cheating front, are a safe and reliable mode of exam, reduce the time to check answers and prepare the result. The exam centres for computer-based tests are set up in colleges or computer labs with adequate facilities and arrangements required for conducting the online examination.

Safety and Security in Online Examination

The organization that takes over the responsibility of conducting the online examination specializes in conducting the tests with all the modern technologies and security measures to avoid fraud and make students comfortable during the exam. Certain institute-level arrangements like Computer Systems with internet and webcams are required for online examination. The arrangement of all setup necessary for the online examination is taken care of by the expert committee of the organization.

The official exam conducting authority monitors the exam either through the live CCTV streaming from the exam hall or through the webcam installed on the computer system. The webcam takes pictures of the candidate appearing the test at irregular intervals or records the video of the entire test duration for security of examination. There are negligible chances of any kind of fraud or cheating in online exams which makes it the preferred mode of exam these days.
Also Read- JEE Main Question Paper | JEE Main Syllabus

Online Vs Offline Exam - Which is Better?

Benefits of Online Examination

There are many benefits of online exams if we compare it with offline exam. Some of the benefits of online exams are listed below

• The operational, administrative, and logistic costs in less in online exams in comparison to offline exams
• The safety and security of the question paper is not compromised. It is next to impossible to leak online question papers
• Feasibility for students in attempting the exam
• Takes less time to check the answer sheets and prepare of result
• Questions and students answers can be saved and stored for a long time in an online exam

Offline Exam - What and How?

The offline exam is the traditional way of conducting tests with the offline question paper and OMR-based answer sheets. Students are provided with the complete questions in the form of question papers and an OMR answer sheet for marking the answers. Many offline exams are descriptive where students need to solve the questions to arrive at a solution or questions that need descriptive, theoretical, or essay as the answer. Offline exams are mostly prevalent in testing where the answer has to be essay-type or descriptive as questions in online exams are Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs).

Most competitive exams and exams of admission in India are swiftly shifting to online exams because of the many benefits of online testing. Shortly, it would not be a surprise if most exams would be conducted online rather than offline. The operational setup, cost of logistics, and administration are some of the primary reasons behind moving to the online exam. Also, in the cases of question paper leaks, the safety and security of questions are one of the big issues in offline exams. Exams like JEE Main and NEET which have applicants in the range of 10 to 15 lakhs are conducted online.

Other Articles