> Most exams were simply open book.

As I've been out of school for a few years now, I've realized that the memorized material from school fades unless you use it regularly. It boggles my mind that we still effectively test students on memorization ability rather than research and synthesis abilities, even in 'hard' sciences. Sure, there are some processes, procedures and standards which we expect professionals to just 'know', but that should not be the vast majority of knowledge tested.

Plus, in the 'real world', I'll happily hire an engineer who doesn't know how to solve an interview problem, but can adequately describe how they'd go about learning how to solve it. I'd trust that person not to just go with their gut or what they think they know, but to rather do some research.

Granted, mass cheating, copying answers, etc is still wrong. People should still have to 'do the work' so to speak.