Bilaspur: AI, which is rapidly making inroads into life, business, employment, education, and daily activities, has now entered the realm of university answer sheet evaluation. In Bilaspur district, the management of Pandit Sundarlal Sharma Open University has pioneered this initiative. The university conducted Pre-B.Ed. and Pre-D.El.Ed. examinations on July 19.
A total of 54,498 candidates appeared for the exam for 500 seats. Faced with the prospect of significant delays in results due to the time-consuming nature of evaluating over 80,000 answer sheets, the university management turned to AI. AI is being used to evaluate not only the Pre-B.Ed. and Pre-D.El.Ed. answer sheets but also those for undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) examinations.
Facility for evaluation and marking via soft copies
Teachers view the soft copies of answer sheets on computers or laptops, which include an option to assign marks directly. This eliminates the need to transport physical (hard) copies from one location to another. Management states that this saves both time and transportation costs.
AI assists in understanding answers
PDFs of reference books related to the specific subjects have been uploaded to the software. If a teacher faces difficulty understanding an answer, AI can assist in generating the correct answer. The teacher can then review it and determine the marks. This approach aims to bring uniformity and transparency to the evaluation process.
Development of AI software
The university management has developed AI-based software to facilitate the online evaluation of answer sheets. Following the examination, answer sheets are scanned in a specially designated strong room to create soft copies. These are then uploaded to the software, and a specific number of copies are transferred to the IDs of the evaluating teachers.
A time limit of approximately three minutes has been set for evaluating a single answer sheet, and all copies are being evaluated within this timeframe. In instances where the evaluation is not completed within the stipulated timeframe, the software automatically transfers the answer sheet to another teacher’s ID.
The online evaluation system will reduce the time required to grade answer sheets and enable the timely release of results. AI is being utilized as an assistive technology for teachers rather than as a substitute for the evaluation process itself; final marks are determined solely based on the teacher’s assessment.
