Students who make it to the merit list of the state joint entrance examination will be able to see their answer scripts online as soon as results are published.

The examinations are scheduled for April 15. “We are trying to ensure that students appearing in this year’s joint entrance examinations can access the facility,” board chairman Bhaskar Gupta said. “The task is mammoth but we intend to take up the challenge to ensure transparency in evaluation.”

To avail themselves of the service, candidates have to log on to the board’s website and give his or her admit card details and registration number.

A similar facility was introduced across IITs last year for all candidates taking the entrance test. Students appearing for GATE, held for studying MTech in IITs, were allowed the facility from this year but with greater advantage. “Students were allowed to see the answer scripts between March 1 and March 5 to find out if the scanner had allotted marks against the right answer,” said Siddhartha Sen, the chairman of GATE, IIT-Kharagpur. The test was held on February 12 and results will be declared on March 15.

In keeping with the online access of answer scripts, the joint entrance questions too would be changed from this year. All questions will now be multiple-choice on the lines of all-India competitive examinations such as CAT or IIT-JEE. Candidates would have to tick the right answers on optical mark recorder (OMR) sheets.

“The OMR paper of each merit-listed candidate would be scanned and uploaded on the board’s website soon after publication of results,” Gupta said. “Ideally, each and every candidate should be able to access the facility. We are in talks with IT firms, which have the software to provide such a service, to find out if non-merit listed candidates can also be included in the initiative.” JEE 2012 will have around 1.4 lakh candidates.

The board has appointed registrar Dibyendu Kar as nodal officer for showing the answer scripts under right to information. “According to a clause, students would have to apply for seeing the script. But the board is planning to show the answer scripts on its own,” Gupta said.