A lawschooldiscussion.org veteran recently posted “An Open Letter To Schools That Continue To Ban Dual Boot Capable Macs.” In it he rightly takes these schools to task for discriminating against Macs when Windows users are fully capable of cheating with the assistance of Virtual PC for Windows. But this is just one of the rationales I’ve seen from schools that don’t support MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops with ExamSoft’s SofTest. Here are some of the others:

  1. “Boot Camp is beta software, so we can’t support it.” I understand why IT departments don’t want to support beta software. By definition, it is not polished enough to be called release software. However, Boot Camp is a boot loader, not a payroll system or the next challenger to Oracle. There just aren’t that many variables that can go wrong with a boot loader. Apple released it back in April of 2006, and the company provides detailed installation instructions. OS X 10.5 “Leopard” will include Boot Camp (without the “beta” designation) when Apple releases the OS upgrade this spring. In summary, Boot Camp works quite well and is here to stay.
  2. “ExamSoft doesn’t allow SofTest to run under Boot Camp.” ExamSoft sent a letter to law school IT departments about Boot Camp in June, 2006, reporting that “all SofTest functionality successfully operates in this environment.”
  3. “If we allowed Macs in, we wouldn’t be able to guarantee that they would function properly, or that we would be able to fix any problems that might come up.” There are no guarantees that PC hardware will function properly either. I do find it curious that any PC that meets the basic requirements to run SofTest will be allowed, no matter how old the machine or of what make. A five year old Inspiron, a three year old no-name, and a one year old laptop assembled by your stepfather’s nextdoor neighbor all make it through the door, but a six month old Mac Book Pro doesn’t make the cut. As for supporting that crazy Macintosh hardware, it’s not 1997 any more. NuBus and AppleTalk are a thing of the past, and despite the lack of an “Intel Inside” sticker, the new batch of Apple laptops aren’t alien creatures.
  4. “Apple couldn’t guarantee us that SofTest would work with Boot Camp.” Fair enough. But ExamSoft has already announced that Boot Camp and SofTest play nicely together. Hardware vendors aren’t generally in the business of guaranteeing that specific software will run on their machines anyway. That’s a question for the software vendor.
  5. “We do what our state bar does, and they don’t allow Boot Camp.” To paraphrase, “Because the state bar arbitrarily constrains exam takers, we’ll do the same thing.” Should students be restricted for three years because restrictions are placed on them for a few hours at the end of that three year period?

I understand that law school IT departments are burdened by resource constraints, but computer technology permeates all our lives. A school that allows students greater technology flexibility will develop a student-friendly reputation. Those that put up barriers will develop reputations of another kind.

As an aside, ExamSoft’s SofTest isn’t the only game in town for schools that elect to use exam software. The other three exam software packages (Electronic Blue Book, Exam4, and Securexam) all support OS X natively.