The University of Pune has successfully implemented the online exams for around 20,000 students of 57 engineering colleges affiliated to the university. This is the first time that the university conducted online exams for any of its stream.

It was the need of the hour to conduct the exams in free and fair manner. Especially, considering the huge burden on the examination department, a simple, feasible and full-proof system was needed and online exams had come forward as an option. Academic council of the UoP accepted the idea and it was decided to conduct the practical exams of "Fundamentals of Programming languages" of first year computer engineering stream online as a pilot project.

"The pilot project was called Compact Disc (CD) based examination' that became successful this year with over 20,000 students giving the exam online," said Prakash Wani, dean of the engineering faculty.

According to chairman of board of studies of computer engineering G V Garje, who actually worked on the project, "The exam was conducted in the last month where the students solved the papers online. It was not a true online in the sense that the results were not immediately displayed online. The UoP prepared the results in form of CD and was declared on Wednesday."

"This CD based examination system has not only brought transparency, simplicity and reliability but also helped to declare the results in time. Moreover, introduction of such system has helped to save the valuable resources of the university and affiliated colleges as well," said Wani.

He also said that the UoP was thinking of extending this pilot project to other exams too.