Technology Use at Exam Time

Two professors used digital video recordings for their Negociations class’ final exam

• one used the webcam and saved the videos to a flash drive so they could be viewed on her laptop at home
• one used the wall mounted camera in the courtroom which gave her a DVD to be viewed on her laptop at home

Many professors use TWEN for Take Home exams

Almost all the students use Examsoft to take their final exams

Exam Software Debate

With the increase of students coming to law school with MAC laptops, we are faced with the decision whether or not to switch from SoftTest to another company.

SoftTest only works on the Windows platform so if a student has a Mac, he/she can use it if BootCamp is installed on the laptop.  Many schools, including us, do not allow students with Macs to use SofTest  because of the security risk associated with rebooting during the exam.

Secure Exam has a Mac version but with all the problems on the NYS Bar Exam last July, we will not use this software.

Exam4 by Extegrity is used by 50 law schools.  It seems simple to use with no need to upload and download answer files.  Is there a security risk?  According to them – NO! According to SofTest, students can use copy paste macros.

Electronic Blue Book by CompuTest is another company with a Mac version. According to SofTest, the same security problems as Exam4 exist with this software.

Examsoft (SoftTest) is by far the most popular software used.  110 law schools use it and it is used on the NYS, FLA, PA, VT and many of the Bar Exams.

This blog has a good summary:  http://www.maclawstudents.com/blog/law-school-exam-software/