Mojo Networks, a pioneer in cloud-managed Wi-Fi, has been ardently collaborating with IIT Bombay, the second-oldest institute of the Indian Institutes of Technology system, to provide seamless & reliable WiFi experience in smart classrooms. The wireless performance has helped in the successful deployment of SAFE (Smart Authenticated Fast Exams), a smartphone app-based system for conducting exams in classrooms, created by professors & student researchers of IITB. SAFE leverages students' smart devices to conduct objective exams in a proctored setting. SAFE is an outcome of over two years of R&D, and has gone through multiple rounds of refinements based on feedback from real deployment and use in classrooms.
Coupled with Mojo’s WiFi, SAFE has been used for different purposes in smart classrooms:
❖ Continuous assessment through short quizzes: Teachers have conducted short quizzes, as easy as asking a verbal question in class. These help in instant feedback to the student as well as the teacher.
❖ Easy, paper-free objective exams: SAFE exams have avoided the hassle of printing and manual evaluation. With SAFE, conducting objective exams is paper-free and cheating-free.
❖ Check mental presence: SAFE has helped instructors check if students have grasped what has been taught in class. With a short SAFE-quiz in the class, instant feedback is possible.
❖ Surveys and polls: SAFE has eased the conduct of many surveys and polls, with configurable anonymity for those answering.
SAFE is easy to operate and most importantly, it is safe: it employs a host of mechanisms to ensure the integrity of the exam, by restricting the use of the smart device for the intended purpose, for the duration of the SAFE exam. SAFE is real time: post submitting the quiz, the instructor is able to instantly view the consolidated mark list. This function enables students to get real-time feedback from the professor thereby helping them focus better on learning, especially in large classes. So far, SAFE has been used for in-class quizzes in 14 IITB courses in the last 2 years. In addition, the app was used in the pre-interview screening test for IITB CSE MTech RA admissions in May 2016.
Reliable and scalable WiFi is a pre-requisite for smart-classroom apps like SAFE. In the words of Kiran Deshpande, Co-founder and President, Mojo Networks “Professors and students demand zero downtime of the WiFi infrastructure, especially during an exam setting. There should be a firm assurance to support several hundred student devices simultaneously in each classroom. We make certain that our WiFi Access Points deliver interactive performance during the interval of the assessment.”
On WiFi-enabled smart classrooms, Prof. Bhaskaran Raman opined: “Future classrooms should have enhanced interactivity, and enriched communication through the correct use of technology. Students should be able to collaborate with one another, and teachers should be able to interact better with students, get feedback on their understanding, and also conduct exams easily. The vision of the smart classroom is critically dependent on availability of a highly reliable and high performance Wi-Fi solution.”
SAFE is one of the many smart-classroom apps developed by Prof. Kameswari Chebrolu, Prof. Bhaskaran Raman (Dept. of CSE, IIT Bombay), and their research team. Learn more about SAFE at http://safe.cse.iitb.ac.in/
