Mumbai University's IDOL postpones all exams to 19 Oct after 'cyber attack' causes technical glitches

The Institute of Distance and Open Learning (IDOL) of the Mumbai University has postponed all its exams to 19 October and is planning to hold exams in a staggered manner, reports said. The decision was taken after around 9,000 third-year students weren’t able to write their scheduled exam due to “technical glitches” earlier this week. The university had recently issued a statement claiming that the glitches faced by students were because of a “ cyber attack” on the exam-conducting software. The MU has asked its software partner — Littlemore Innovation Labs — to provide details of the cyber attack. The university is then likely to file a complaint with the cyber cell, a report in Economic Times said. For two consecutive days on 5 and 6 October, IDOL students were unable to write the exam due to technical glitches. Hindustan Times reported that on 6 October, around 90 percent of the final-year BCom and BA students said they were not able to log in to the link of the exam app. IDOL had on Tuesday postponed the exams after receiving flak from students, many of whom also gathered at the university’s Kalina campus that evening, a report in Mid-Day said. Accordign to the Economic Times report, the Mumbai University is trying to formulate a “fool-proof” plan, and the decision to postpone the exams was one of the steps taken to ensure the exam is conducted without glitches. “We are taking some time to ensure that there will now not be any technical issues or problems and to have additional back-up. Pushing the exam will give us sufficient time to conduct the mock test for all students, to contact all candidates and get their information. We don’t want anything to go wrong so we are taking sufficient time,” the report auoted officials as saying. As a way to circumvent any possible technical issues in the future, the university is reportedly also considering holding the exam in a staggered manner,  The Times of India reported. “Students can be divided in batches based on subjects, faculty, and location. Also, several colleges will be done with their exams soon and can probably help conduct distance education online exams. We are considering all possibilities as the university does not intend to risk exams again,” the report quoted an MU official as saying. However, the IDOL department will be racing against time to process marksheets as MU chancellor and Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has set the deadline of the declaration of results as 31 October. With inputs from agencies