The Faculty’s closed-minded approach to open book exams
Change can be an uncomfortable thing and, contrary to our Ozymandian delusions of permanence, it is almost certainly inevitable. Triteness (of which I am painfully aware) aside, this is a cosmic truth. That the journey of joyous appearance, brief existence, and unceremonious extinction is one common to all life, for example, is a testament to this principle. Nothing is meant to last forever.
Now that I’ve invoked some measure of existential dread, I offer you cause for optimism. While we can’t quite eliminate change entirely, we can make the process a more forgiving one by consciously adapting our actions to our circumstances. Instead of standing tall in the face of change, we ought to scurry into the grass and adjust to its whims. After all, those that resist obvious warning signs serve as lessons (and strained analogies) for the future.
140 words in, you must wonder what these rambling ruminations have to do with U of T Law. I’ll tell you. Though the Royal Ontario Museum sits some distance from campus, we have our fair share of dinosaurs as well. While they each deserve to be unearthed and examined in the proper light, for the purposes of this article, look no further than to our inane exam practices.
This time of year will see hundreds of law students at U of T preparing for their finals with diligence, placing finishing touches on meticulously crafted summaries and outlines. These materials act as a point of reference to some, as a guiding light to others, and as a Hail Mary to a fair few. Regardless of the role they serve in your personal test-taking experiences, their importance is abundantly clear. When finals worth 90 or 100 percent of your grade are fairly common, having adequate access to your materials makes a world of difference. Despite this, U of T Law will be reimplementing its practice of forbidding electronic access to course materials during exams.
This leads us to the overwhelming question. Why has the Faculty been loath to easing access?
Those of us who were around last year faced our finals in a most peculiar, alien environment–our homes. Though the circumstances were unusual, it’s probably safe to say that we all appreciated the luxury afforded by electronic access. This crucial change introduced a measure of cohesion, control, and efficiency to test-taking. The resulting exam process circumvented the stress that comes from placing too much reliance on fragile, easily-jumbled paper materials and, to our knowledge, did not induce cheating. As we look to attempt finals in-person, however, a return to the sole allowance of printed materials gives rise to concern.
There is an obvious environmental consideration. Materials for a single course can easily cross into the triple digit realm. For each law student at U of T to undergo this process up to eight times in a given year is shamefully wasteful. The tension with U of T’s wider community mission is also palpable, given U of T President Meric Gertler’s recent espousal of the values of environmentalism and local engagement.
There are also human concerns. Simply, the mandate makes the exam experience more stressful. It makes pertinent information more difficult to locate. It breeds a frantic and cluttered testing environment. It penalizes students who dared to save money by using online textbooks and, for good measure, penalizes them further with the costs of printing and binding. The practice makes little sense in an age where digital note-taking is the norm and students are strongly encouraged to type their exams. It makes even less sense when accounting for the Faculty’s successful implementation of electronic access during exams just one year prior. I suppose a traditionalist could say, “if the tried and true methods work, why change them?”
I guess an appropriate response would be, “if the new methods work, why shy away from them?”
Yet, the Faculty is seemingly enamored with its status quo, bafflingly holding on to policies and practices shown to be antiquated during the worst months of the pandemic. (Given that our profession precedes the invention of the printing press, do you think some barristers of old would have vehemently opposed the transition to paper from the traditional technologies of their time, such as wax tablets, clay, or papyrus? Totally unrelated, and would love to hear your thoughts.) This is a good time to revisit my earlier discussion of change. What we appear to have in this context is an aversion to it, even when it would benefit students greatly. Ease of access is not an issue exclusive to the Faculty’s exam practices, either. There has been little entertainment to the thought of extending virtual Zoom access to everyone enrolled in a given class, leaving students at the mercy of a redundant, patronizing registration system. UV’s continuous calls for recorded lectures have also fallen on deaf ears. All told, sliced any way, there has been a failure to adapt. The result? We are left with a process which remains, to some degree, unnecessarily unforgiving.
