External Aids Do you allow students to use any external reference aids on exams? (For example, open book, open notes, student supplied note pages or formulas, instructor supplied note pages.)

For instructor supplied aids, please describe. For any student supplied aids, what restrictions do you enforce? (For example, number of pages, content such as not allowing worked out examples, authorship such as personally generated vs. photocopied.)

The mid-term exam is in-class, open book, with no restriction on what notes students can bring. I want the exam to assess a student's conceptual understanding. In the past, my knowing, as I made up the exam, that students would have their books and notes, helped me design questions that called for understanding rather than regurgitation and ritual arithmetic. After a while, my exams settled into a pattern that has remained pretty stable in recent years. The down side of open book exams is that students tend to underestimate the need to study in advance, and that's why, in recent years, I've taken to giving short, weekly closed-book quizzes. Students know very specifically which one or two topics each quiz will cover. I give 10 and drop the lowest 3 grades. The main purpose is to provide an incentive for students not to fall behind, to provide a timely check for students on how well they are doing, and to provide an easy way for students to register their competence. Most students end up with a high quiz average.