Blue Books

The WSJ article about the resurgence of blue books in college classrooms is a direct response to the widespread use of AI for academic dishonesty. While effective at curbing cheating, this old-school solution highlights deeper questions about the purpose of education, the role of technology, and the skills students need for the future.

There has always been the concept of an open-book exam or atleast the ability to write up your notes in a specific number of pages and bring them to the exam hall. The intent of these options were to level the playing field for the students and to challenge professors to test what really matters, get to the point where any number of books or notes cannot help. 

It's a next level challenge with AI but there is still a way to let the AIs in the exam hall and challenge students to demonstrate next level thinking. Clearly the capabilities of AIs well exceed a set of typed up notes or access to a few books. But if universities are going to be taken seriously by students or their parents, then they need to meet the challenges of the times and not take cover behind blue books. This professor's argument is right: 

“They will use ChatGPT all the time for all sorts of things, and that will make them more efficient, more productive and better able to do their jobs,” said Arthur Spirling, a Princeton University professor of politics who gives proctored blue-book exams. “It is strange to say you won’t be permitted to do this thing that will be very natural to you for the rest of your career.”