Bangalore: A college in Bangalore has come out with an 'out-of-the-box' solution to utilize mobile phone technology at their campus. Seshadripuram First Grade College in Yelahanka, Bangalore has introduced a new concept which allows teachers to mark their attendance and for students to answer their question papers by using mobile phones.

The concept of using mobile phones for marking attendance and submitting answers is ironic as most schools and colleges across the nation condemn the use of cellular phones at their campuses as it disrupts the process of learning.

The endeavor by the college has been titled 'Interactive Platform On Mobile (IPOMO)', under which the college provides common models of mobile handsets to both students and teachers in which games and messaging has been disabled. Students and teachers are also provided instructions on using the handsets, which are returned to the college once the respective tasks have been done.

The idea to use mobile phones for marking attendance and submitting answers had been introduced last year in the college for only BBM and BCA courses but had proved to be so successful that it had been decided to extend the service to other courses as well.

For conducting a test, the students are given a question paper for each subject that has multiple choice type questions with four options for answers. After entering the correct answers, students can revise them and then click on the submit option. The answers are then recorded on the server.

For a three-hour test, the number of question given to the students is 120. Students are also allowed to use the calculator present in the handsets for calculations.

For marking attendance, teachers will be given a password. When the password is entered, the teacher will be given the options for selecting the course, section and subject, after which the names of the students taking that particular class are displayed. After the attendance has been marked, which has to be done in 15 minutes, the data is automatically sent to the server.