Exams: Open-book or closed-book?

I still don't see what good an open-book exam may bring. But the university can experiment and study the effects on the students. If it is for the betterment of each and everyone, why not? We won't know till we try.

Yes, eileenleyva...examination is not the time for research. In an open-book exam, students are supposed to refer certain pages only, not the entire book. That means they must know where to look for the answers. That also means if they hardly study, they won't know where to look. Generally, open-book exams for core subjects would take more than an hour. In the university where I teach, that's 2 hours or 3 hours depending on the paper/subject. Obviously, this open-book exam will not benefit those who hope to roll a dice for the answer, and those who merely memorise like parrots. :) It has been a great discussion. I hope more people would contribute so that we could learn from each other.

Yes, at first it is more difficult to write the questions. After awhile it gets kinda fun actually. It is a challenge to word them so that the answers are a little more difficult to achieve. It does get easier to think that way though. I also use the same type of method for writing study guides for Bible studies!

Yes, it's true. An open-book exam or OBE entails a lot more work on the part of the teacher as it requires thinking how to ask questions that make students think and apply what they have learnt. Our university is in the process of trying out the OBE but I'm unsure how it's going to work for English. Was it difficult for you to design the questions? Did you have to attend a workshop on how to create questions for OBE? What problems did you face while doing the questions, and have your students been ok with this type of assessment rather than the traditional closed-book exam? Sorry, too many questions but I find this discussion interesting as it relates to my work, and to what the establishment is going to do in the new semester. Thanks :)

Taking exams is not about answering easy questions to get good scores. The whole purpose of taking an exam is to assess if students have understood what has been taught,and if they are able to apply theories, concepts or formulas in real situations. If students expect questions to be easy all the time, then not much of learning could take place. When we study hard, we are able to (hopefully) understand the contents. Therefore, in the exam, you'll be able to answer the questions rather easily though there could be a couple of tricky of mind-bending questions, which are in fact good if you could attempt to answer. It is hoped that students study hard to pass the exams and not merely hope for easy questions. Cheers! :)

In an exam, a candidate is supposed to be prepared with answers. In an open-book exam, you need to know which page (or at least the chapter) to refer, or else you'd be spending more time referring than answering questions. I'd like to hear from someone (a teacher or a student) who has actually gone through this process. How was it implemented, and was it successful? Did it make students better learners? How does it affect the teachers in terms of designing the questions?

By the way jshekhar, thanks for the comment. Appreciate that :)

Yup, that's right. It's definitely going to be tough questions but there must be guidelines as to how these questions should be designed, too. We don't want everyone to fail, do we? What are these guidelines, that's what I want to know, too :) Hey, thanks. Good comment :)