Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur is the organizing body for JEE Advanced 2018. Students will face an online IIT JEE Advanced for the first time. A document for the conduct of computer based online examination for JEE (Advanced) 2018 examination on IITK website throws some light on the examination. JEE Advanced 2018 will be the engineering entrance examination for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology. JEE Advanced is administered each year by the seven zonal IITs, and one among them takes the responsibility of operations related to the exam.

This year, the organizing institute has been announced to be IIT Kanpur. The last time IITK was organizing institute for Joint Entrance Examination was in the year 2011, back when IIT JEE used to be held (after that the two tier JEE system of Mains and Advanced was introduced). A total of 485136 students had registered for the entrance exam in that year, out of which, 13196 had qualified. A massive change to the entrance examination this time is the introduction of online test. An IT firm for the technical implementation is yet to be decided. However IIT K has already started inviting bids from qualified firms for holding computer based test.

Exam will be held in two languages, English & Hindi. The body which takes up responsibility for online JEE Advanced 2018 will look after security, exam centre allotment, verification of candidates, infrastructure for exam day, and query handling of candidates. Overall 2.2 lakh students will appear for JEE Advanced 2018. JEE Advanced, erstwhile IIT JEE, is the second stage of selection. Students first need to appear and clear JEE Main 2018 which will be held by the Central Board of Secondary Examination. Cut off marks needed in the CBSE JEE Main 2018 in order to be eligible for JEE Advanced is disclosed at the time of declaration of JEE Main Result.

Last time the cut off was quite low at 81 for general, 49 for OBC, 32 for SC, 27 for ST. Exam dates will be soon announced. IITK has confirmed that the exam will be held in several cities in India as well as in 6 countries abroad. The foreign countries to host JEE Adv 2018 will be Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nepal, Singapore, Srilanka and UAE (Dubai). Sufficient time of 15-20 minutes shall be allotted before the exam for providing orientation to the candidates on the structure of the exam, time limits and guidelines for answering the question papers.

Computer based exam software should support standard features such as display of details of candidates, detailed instruction upon login, start and closure of examination at scheduled time, virtual numeric scientific keypad, time left, flag questions for review, marking/unmarking of question, display of status of questions with different color and symbols, switching between sections, switching between Hindi and English languages, provision for enlargement of font, navigation to unanswered questions and prompt for submission.

While it is already known that the exam will be held on a single date, it is further notified that there will be two sessions in a single day. Prior to exam, the exam conducting body will also launch an online mock test to help candidates familiarize with the exam interface. Students need not be worried about technical issues, as the centres will have backup systems to help out if anything goes wrong in any of the assigned systems.

Tightening the security for this critical exam, there will be various levels of verification. This includes checking of original documents and admit card of the candidates at the entrance gate of the examination center. Individual password shall be given to each candidate by the selected bidder at the examination center after verification of the documents. It will also be ensured that the signature of the candidate is taken in the attendance sheet and verification of the signature in attendance sheet is done vis-à-vis the signature in the admit card.