New Delhi: In the wake of the Covid pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, various Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) have come up with new ways of evaluating students graduating this year.
While some IITs have changed their grading system to make it more flexible to suit the current situation, some have decided to hold re-examinations if a student fails.
IIT-Delhi is giving two options to its graduating batch — those who have less than a semester left to graduate, they can decide to either go for an “early graduation” option, happening in June-end, or go through a “regular graduation process”, which will happen as and when the institute re-opens.
According to the minutes of an IIT-Delhi senate meeting, accessed by ThePrint, the plan has been finalised keeping in mind the present scenario, but “if situation changes in future, the policies and dates also change”.
For the early graduation plan, the institute has offered students two options — an “audit Pass/Fail” option or a “Credit” option.
For the “audit” option, the minutes of the senate meeting said, “The instructors (professors) will declare the cut-off and the process, taking into account the Covid-19-related constraints.”
For the regular “Credit” option, students will take online tests, “home exams”, assignments, telephone viva, among others.
Students choosing early graduation do not have to come to the campus. But those choosing the regular graduation process will have to attend regular classes once the campus re-opens.
The institute further added that in case a student cannot complete his/her graduation requirements by June-end with the options offered to them, they will have a fallback option to graduate when the semester reconvenes.
The institute said it hoped to get students back on the campus by 2 July in a phased manner. “However, these dates can change depending on how the Covid situation evolves,” the minutes of the meeting read.
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IIT-Roorkee giving options to re-appear in exams
IIT-Roorkee is giving a “one-time special provision” to its students given the unprecedented circumstances.
According to an official communication from the institute: “The performance of the students in Spring semester 2019-2020 would not be counted for academic performance-based termination of programmes.”
This means that students will not be issued warning letters or their programmes won’t be terminated based on their performance in the Spring semester.
During the lockdown period, the institute had continued the Spring semester via online teaching. The semester will now be completed by grading the students while taking into account their performance up to mid-term examinations and during online teaching.
Students will also be allowed to re-appear for an online examination if they think their grades are not satisfactory. However, if they choose to accept their grades, they will be considered final.
A student who fails will also be allowed for re-examination, with no limits on the number of subjects in which he/she can re-appear, the institute said.
IIT-Gandhinagar to start online classes next week
According to an official communication from IIT-Gandhinagar, the institute will complete courses of the second semester of 2019-20 academic year through online classes beginning from 8 June. The institute has also introduced a new grading system for the disrupted academic term.
The institute will not be issuing any grades (A,B,C,D) for courses in the second semester. Two new grades are being introduced — ‘P(E)’ and ‘I/F’ — for all courses.
‘P(E)’ or Pass (Emergency) is a pass grade, but will have a different connotation than the usual ‘P’ (Pass) grade. The ‘I/F’ grade will denote ‘Incomplete/Fail’.
‘P(E)’ grade will be awarded if the faculty assesses that a student has satisfied the requirements for passing the course. Credits earned for courses that are awarded a ‘P(E)’ grade will be counted as a requirement for graduation.
An ‘I/F’ grade will be assigned if a student did not complete the requirements of the course or did not perform well enough to warrant a passing grade.
“All students given an ‘I/F’ grade will have one opportunity to complete the course requirement and improve their performance and earn a ‘P(E)’ grade,” the note from the institute read.
Other IIT plans
IIT-Bombay has also released its plan for the Spring semester.
“Spring Semester 2019-20 will be closed without requiring the students to return to IIT-B. Final grading of all courses (incl. Theory / Lab / Seminar / Projects) will be completed latest by June 30, 2020,” according to a statement released by the institute last month.
The institute, like others, has also changed its grading method to suit the need of the hour, providing more flexibility to the students.
IIT-Kharagpur also decided to go for alternative methods of evaluation.
In a press note released on 30 May, the institute said: “IIT Kharagpur has decided to replace the usual end semester examination with other considerations of evaluating the performance. This would include grades of mid-semester examination, assignments, viva, etc.”
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