The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), responding to long-standing demands for greater transparency in evaluation, introduced the on-screen marking (OSM) system to standardise answer-script assessment through digital technology. Under this framework, answer books are scanned into secure digital files and evaluated online through a cyber-secure platform enabling digital monitoring, random allocation of scripts, centralised moderation, and automated verification checks.
The initiative sought to improve transparency, accuracy, confidentiality, and uniformity in marking. However, it soon faced controversies over server failures, portal glitches, blurred or incomplete scanned scripts, unchecked responses, inconsistent step-marking, evaluation discrepancies, payment gateway issues, and concerns about the reliability and verifiability of the digital evaluation process.
Ironically, a system introduced to eliminate evaluation irregularities itself came under scrutiny for procedural, academic, and technological lapses. It also raises a fundamental question: why should students be charged to access and verify answer scripts that are largely their own intellectual work and have already been digitised as part of the evaluation process?
The evaluation system
Evaluation remains the most consequential component of the Teaching–Learning–Evaluation (TLE) framework because it directly influences students’ academic progression, college admissions, scholarships, and career opportunities, particularly for Class XII students. After years of preparation and intense competition, students have a legitimate right to know how their answers were assessed, how step-marking was applied, and where marks were deducted.
Unlike multiple-choice-question (MCQ)-based examinations, where evaluation through optical mark recognition (OMR) sheets and answer keys is objective and machine-verifiable, descriptive examinations involve subjective assessment across multiple steps, methods, and interpretations. Different evaluators may award different marks for the same answer depending on reasoning, presentation, or methodology.
Given the massive scale of Board examinations involving millions of answer scripts, maintaining consistency in descriptive evaluation remains a major academic and technological challenge.
OSM rollout and challenges
CBSE’s OSM system marked a significant shift from the conventional pen-and-paper (PnP) evaluation to digital assessment of scanned answer scripts. The system was expected to improve transparency, enable standardisation and centralised monitoring, and reduce manual evaluation errors. However, the rollout reportedly suffered from hurried implementation, weak digital infrastructure, poor-quality scanning systems, limited examiner training, and inadequate operational protocols. Complaints soon emerged.
The experience highlighted that digital evaluation is not merely a software transition but a complex academic and technological ecosystem that requires robust SOPs, secure infrastructure, examiner preparedness, audit mechanisms, and strong cybersecurity safeguards to ensure transparency, consistency, and accountability.
Scope for reforms in the OSM system
The Digital OSM framework should provide scanned answer books to all students free of cost, since scripts are already digitised before evaluation. CBSE should securely deliver encrypted digital copies within a fixed timeline through authenticated portals, email, or secure mobile platforms. Such a framework would make evaluation more transparent, traceable, scalable, and verifiable while reducing server congestion, manual intervention, and access-related disputes. The proposed system would, however, require a set of clearly defined standard operating procedures (SOP).
The CBSE should establish high-resolution scanning systems, encrypted archival and backup facilities, high-capacity cloud servers, and strong cybersecurity safeguards against unauthorised access or data manipulation. The complete workflow — including scanning, indexing, storage, evaluator access, digital delivery, and audit logging — should undergo repeated pilot testing and full-load simulations through local and pre-board examinations before nationwide rollout.
Evaluators, moderators, scanning staff, and administrators should undergo structured training in digital evaluation procedures, screen-based moderation, stepwise marking, and handling of scanned scripts. Students should use only black pens and standardised answer-writing formats to ensure clear scanning and readability of answer books and supplementary sheets.
Detailed subject-wise marking schemes, including step-marks and acceptable alternative methods, should be released within a week after the examinations. A short expert feedback window should be provided before Chief Examiners finalise marking schemes. This would help reduce ambiguities, improve standardisation, and minimise arbitrary variations in marking.
Additionally, within two to three weeks after examinations, encrypted digital answer scripts should be securely delivered to students and parents through authenticated portals, email, or registered mobile applications integrated with secure cloud and messaging APIs. Students or parents should confirm within 24 hours of receipt that the scripts are complete, readable, correctly indexed, and genuinely their own, including all supplementary sheets.
The evaluation should begin only after script verification is completed. Examiners must assess scripts strictly in accordance with approved stepwise marking schemes. Additional digital oversight tools, such as audit trails, online moderation, automated totaling checks, anomaly-detection systems, and random quality audits, should continuously monitor consistency, completeness, and adherence to SOPs.
Since students and parents would already possess both their answer scripts and official marking schemes, they can independently estimate their likely scores before the declaration of results. Significant deviations between self-estimated and officially awarded marks would help identify possible evaluation anomalies and enable targeted review or moderation.
Finally, re-checking and re-evaluation should continue as a safeguard mechanism with defined timelines and digital tracking. However, with the proposed SOPs already ensuring verified scripts and standardised marking schemes, grievances are expected to reduce substantially.
Such a framework would significantly strengthen transparency, accountability, and public trust in the evaluation process.
The way forward
A reliable Digital OSM system requires robust scanning infrastructure, secure archival systems, high-capacity servers, and strong cybersecurity safeguards. Given the scale of the CBSE examinations, repeated full-load testing and pilot runs are essential before nationwide implementation.
Structured training for examiners and scanning staff, along with standardised, stepwise marking schemes and disciplined digital evaluation protocols, are necessary to avoid blurred scans, unchecked answers, and inconsistent marking. With well-defined SOPs and secure implementation, digital OSM can significantly improve the credibility, consistency, and accountability of large-scale examination evaluation in India.
Importantly, the same framework can be implemented even now, making the current crisis largely reversible within a few weeks at most. By proactively sharing scanned answer scripts with all students, enabling verification of script completeness and authenticity, ensuring transparent matching of awarded marks against approved marking schemes, and correcting evaluations where the prescribed marking scheme has not been properly followed, the CBSE can quickly restore confidence in the OSM process and regain much of the credibility lost during the rollout.
(Rajeev Kumar is a former Computer Science Professor at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, BITS Pilani, and JNU, and a former scientist at DRDO and DST.)