the national testing agency nta has established itself as the countrys premier exam conducting body with jee and neet being its flagship tests as the shift towards online exams grows amplified by the pandemic quite a few institutes have run into technical problems while conducting them ntas director general vineet joshi speaks to toi about the planning which goes into conducting an online exam infrastructure required and future technology which may come into playthe general view is that conducting online exams is easy all you require is a software computers and an agency to handle the processthat thought process is a trap and one needs to be careful about it you cannot get into a computerbased test without going over the minutest details right from planning candidate load centres data secrecy to execution of the exam itself every single step requires months of meticulous planning every phase is planned to the minutest details and tested way before the dday you have to be very careful while choosing the partner who conducts the exam the software being used etchow safe and successful are homebased proctored exams through smartphoneswe tried this in some places this year some small exams were conducted in the said format due to covid19 pandemic but we are not very comfortable with this because we got many complaints about unfair means being used in such examscan students give exams on their mobile if they are present inside a designated secure exam centreyes its definitely doable but there are obviously concerns related to malware in mobiles care has to be taken about other software present in the mobile and how it can be removed or disabled during exams so it depends upon the type of software you are using to conduct the exam and the it infrastructure at the centre but people are working on the idea and its probably what the future may look like what are some of the key things an online exam conducting body has to keep in mindthere are multiple things here first is meticulous planning of entire process right till declaration of results then comes secrecy of data being collected be it questions or candidates personal data answers etc you have to ensure that candidates responses answers are saved immediately in a safe and secure server where no unauthorized access can happen then comes the handling of exceptions which emerge on the exam day power can go off some switch may not work etc handling students anxiety and working on the problem are also crucial quick processing of the data post exams is important as you cant leave it lying around with your local service provider thats where allegations of manipulation can crop upfor online exams do you simulate technical crisis as part of preparationthats an integral part each and every system involved in the process is tested we conduct a mock test on every single computer across india on which the final test will be taken also we do not leave everything