I will have a longer post addressing procedural questions concerning the final exam within the next week. But I thought I should address this one now.
QUESTION: I was wondering whether students will have access to their notes in the computer during the exam? In the past, I've taken an exam on examsoft, where access to my notes on the computer remained available (Professor Neustadler's Contract Exam). If possible, I would like that option available. Thank you very much for your consideration.
ANSWER: You are welcome for the consideration. But you are going to be disappointed with my answer, which is no. The short of it is that I am inherently conservative in tinkering with exam procedures, so my strong presumption is in favor keeping things the same. My underlying substantive concern with opening up laptops for such access is that it rewards students who (a) stuff exorbitant amounts of material on their hard drives, and (b) are able to access that material through various searches during the exam. And I am thinking not just about what is actually fair, but also various perceptions of fairness.
Thus, the answer is no. I will maintain the default setting in examsoft, which means you will not be able to access anything on your hard drive. The exam is completely open book. But if you want access to something, you need to bring it to the exam in a hard copy.