Its first online test fails,IGNOU blames rivals

The first session of IGNEAT 2009 — the first online version of the entrance test — was scheduled for 11 am-12.30 pm on October 31. A second 90-minute session was to follow at 3 pm,with three other sessions scheduled for November 1.

Online exams in five engineering disciplines — civil,mechanical,electrical,computer science & engineering,and electronics & communications engineering — were to be given in seven languages — English,Hindi,Tamil,Telugu,Kannada,Assamese and Marathi — at 80 examination centres across the country.

The online system crashed within minutes of the beginning of the first session on the first day.

“While 9,349 students were to appear for the online examination in five different slots,there were lakhs of hits on the online examination portal within seconds of the first slot of the exam beginning. Since the online exam format was designed for just 9,000-odd examinees,the server crashed,said Prof Vyas,IGNEAT 2009 coordinator.

“We strongly suspect that it was sabotaged by someone who did not get the contract for developing the online platform.”

IGNOU had,in collaboration with Chennai-based Sri Angala Parameshwari Educational Trust (SAPET),rented a Yahoo! sever for conducting the online examination,to be hosted on the link

“We had to cancel the examination. An enquiry will now be conducted,we will take stock of the situation and Yahoo! will give us a detailed report within a day or two. Our first impression is that it was sabotage,and if the same is corroborated by Yahoo! and our investigations,we will take the issue to the Cyber Crimes Cell,” Vyas added.

The exam stands postponed indefinitely. Following the failure of the online system,IGNOU may even revert to the conventional Optical Mark Reader (OMR) testing format,in which examinees blacken circles or squares on a paper answerscript to indicate their choice of answer.