India’s largest distance education university’s first experiment with online testing collapsed within minutes of taking off Saturday, a disaster which the university suspects resulted from a malicious cyber attack.

Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) will now ask the Cyber Crimes Cell of the Delhi Police to probe the glitch which led to the cancellation of the scheduled two-day IGNOU Engineering Aptitude Test (IGNEAT) for entry into full-time B.Tech. and Diploma Programmes in Engineering and Technology, exam coordinator Prof Shiv Kumar Vyas told The Indian Express on Monday.

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.”

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