In an effort to reduce human error while collating Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) examination results, the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB) has decided to ask evaluators to enter the marks through an online software.
V. Sumangala, Director, KSEEB, said the online mark porting software will be used by evaluators to enter the marks after the answer script is evaluated for the SSLC March 2019 examination.
Besides reducing errors, this method would help ensure that they are able to announce the results one week earlier than usual. While board officials needed around 15 days to process the results after evaluation is complete, with online marking it would now require only a maximum of four days to process the results. KSEEB authorities said evaluators used to check the answer scripts and then shade the marks obtained on the OMR sheet. “The sheet would then be sent to the board and it would be fed into the system. Several times the evaluators would not shade the marks correctly; sometimes students would see single digit marks next to their names even though they had scored well,” said an official.
To reduce this discrepancy, in the June 2018 supplementary examinations, the board asked the assistant evaluators to use the software to enter the data.
“The same score should be entered by the Deputy Chief. If there is a mismatch in the numbers, the joint chief will get a pop up and will have to rectify the marks,” said Ms. Sumangala.
She also said that the evaluators would be trained in the new process and there would be a helpline dedicated to answer calls. Each evaluator will get a login and password to enter the marks.
So far, due to errors, the board would receive several requests for re-totalling, and photocopy of answer scripts. For the exams held in March 2018, the board got 67,895 requests for photocopies and 11,596 requests for re-totalling and re-evaluation.
