Use of Exams Are "exams" a component of your students' course grade? What percentage of the overall grade are from exams? What is the format of your main exams? Would you characterize these exams as mostly multiple choice, short answer, longer answer questions, or some mixture?
Are these in-class exams or take-home exams? What time restrictions do you place on the exams? How many students do you expect to finish in the time allotted?

Why do you use exams? Do you feel exams are an important reflection of students' abilities?

Do you take any safeguards to try to minimize student cheating? Please describe the concern and how you respond (e.g., seating arrangements, multiple versions of exams).

I use exams as about 60 percent of the students' grade in the class. I don't like to go over 60 percent, because I think there are lots of things that can't be assessed in a timed exam situation. The format of my exams is generally 1/2 short answer, and 1/2 multiple choice. The short answer questions typically target a certain issue very specifically, to avoid essay type situations that are hard to grade and hard for students to do under a time pressure situation. I do like to have students turn in reports/essays, but not in an exam situation. Exams are always in-class, taking no more than 48 min; final exam is in class, comprehensive, and takes 1 hr 50 min. It's typically 1 1/2 times as long as a regular midterm. Almost all students finish in the allotted time. I do not believe in pushing students to work very quickly by giving them lots of questions. I prefer to write fewer questions and have them think more deeply about them. I also prefer students to feel they were given a fair amount of time, so they can hold themselves more accountable (rather than me) regarding their exam experience. I use exams because I feel I have to, that the university would think I was crazy if I didn't. I'd prefer lots of inclass experiences that added up to more than 60 percent of their grade, with a few quizzes in between, and maybe some sort of culminating experience where they needed to show what they knew. I don't think exams always show what a student really knows, but that may be in how we write the exams. A professor can really determine how students are going to do, merely by how he/she writes the exam, and I don't like that. I do minimal things to help deter cheating, but I don't do a lot. I think some of the mechanisms people use (taking digital photos of students, video taping them during exams, etc.) are more distracting to the good students, and that's where I draw the line.