What’s on-screen marking, and where CBSE failed this time

The rollout of OSM (on-screen marking), a digital system to manage and mark CBSE answer scripts, was well-intentioned. For teachers, it was supposed to make things easier, the software promising to eliminate the most common marking and totalling mistakes. For students, it was supposed to usher in a tech-enabled layer of transparency: the scripts, time-stamped at every stage, would be stored in secure servers, ready for reevaluation, if the odd error cropped up.In reality, the small step towards digitisation proved hugely controversial. OSM — announced just a week before the exam, without giving examiners a chance to acquaint themselves with the system, according to some allegations — caused widespread result discrepancies, website crashes, and severe data privacy concerns regarding answer sheets. Riddled with evaluation errors, system and portal vulnerabilities, and data privacy backlash, it escalated into a national crisis, with students even questioning why the board appointed COEMPT Eduteck, which had allegedly been involved in previous evaluation controversies in other states, to manage OSM.So, what went wrong?➤ OSM is the acronym for CBSE’s ‘OnScreen Marking’, which the board introduced for Class 12 this year. ​➤ As the name suggests, OSM replaces paper checks with digital evaluation.After a student is finished with the paper, the answer sheets are first collected from the exam centres, and securely transported to Regional Offices (ROs). Then, the board begins the first steps to digitise each script, beginning with ‘spine-preserving’ — a method in which answer booklets are scanned without cutting, removing, or damaging its stitched spine binding. Each script then goes through two tiers of quality checks before being released to evaluators. At this stage, if some pages have failed to scan well, they are re-scanned.The papers are then taken through a stage called ‘anonymisation’, where student IDs are masked, barcodes attached, and uploaded to a protected evaluation portal. This is done to ensure evaluators have no information linking a particular sheet to a student.Once the papers are at the evaluation stage, each evaluator can log in via credentials from CBSE’s Online Affiliated School Information System (OASIS) database and mark answers onscreen using a standardised marking scheme. The software enforces stepwise marking and auto-total scores, ensuring no attempted answer escapes the evaluator. Once the scripts are graded, head examiners (HE) and additional HEs perform random audits.Once marking is complete, digital marks are compiled into results. Answer-book images are uploaded, usually through a secure internal network, to CBSE’s digital evaluation platform, known as the “OnMark” portal. Every action is recorded with the user’s identity and timestamp. Once submitted, answer scripts are locked to prevent tampering.BLURRED SCANS AND MISMATCHES | CBSE said about 40 crore pages were scanned overall, with only about 30,000 problematic pages (0.01%). Scanninglevel problems reported included complaints about blurred or unreadable pages; cropped answers or margins; missing pages; supplementary sheets not appearing in scanned copies; and answer-sheet mix-ups.TEACHERS’ ISSUES | Evaluators had to assess handwritten responses, diagrams and lengthy answers in digital format. They faced problems with difficult-to-read faint handwriting; unclear diagrams and graphs; screen fatigue; portal glitches and page-loading issues.MARKING & SCORE COMPILATION | The OSM platform automatically calculates totals and is designed to prevent evaluators from skipping questions. But, after scanned copies were released, some students alleged that correct MCQ responses received lower-than-expected marks; certain answers appeared unchecked; and marks awarded did not match the visible evaluation on scanned scripts.CBSE has not publicly released any technical audit report identifying a system-wide cause for these complaints.BLURRED SCANS | About 68,018 scripts (out of 98 lakh) had to be re-scanned because of quality issues. Ultimately 13,583 needed manual evaluation after repeated scanning failures. If “any ambiguity was found, the answer script was rescanned”, the board said.DATA SECURITY & CYBERATTACKS | The board moved all scanned data onto its own secure servers and instituted strict Service Level Agreements (SLAs) within its IT and evaluation vendor contracts, including penalties of Rs 1 lakh for every 15 minutes of downtime. Examiner sessions monitored through video surveillance.STUDENT COMPLAINTS | The digital system also allows students to access scanned copies of evaluated answer sheets through online portal or by requesting them. More than 4 lakh students, around 23% of those who appeared for the examination, applied to obtain scanned copies of their answer scripts. Students also allowed to seek re-evaluation of answers. CBSE processed around 6.3 lakh re-evaluation requests.CBSE first implemented OSM as a pilot in 2014 for its Class 10 results, but not for all subjects and candidates. Then, it had termed itself the first national examination body to start OSM. But OSM was implemented two years before that, by the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) in Belgaum, Karnataka. VTU used the system for the first to fourth semesters of all its UG courses, covering roughly 20 lakh answer scripts of 3 lakh students across 193 colleges.In fact, OSM first took root in large technical and health-science universities, which had heavy answer-script volumes, and were under strong pressure to release results on time.Universities such as VTU, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, IK Gujral Punjab Technical University, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology,WestBengal,DrAPJ Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow and Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University, Kanpur (formerly Kanpur University), are among others that have been using OSM.