In the face of high-stakes exams, students at the UC Berkeley School of Law have voiced concerns over required exam software, citing serious technical issues, privacy risks and exam complications while the school continues to use Electric Bluebook, or EBB.
EBB is an electronic exam software intended to prevent cheating and generative AI use during written exams while providing a simple and secure testing environment.
Last fall, a version of the software posed issues for a number of students, including crashes, failed submissions, device malfunctions that required full restarts and data access concerns that led some to arrange borrowing a new device.
“We received over 150 anonymous comments last semester raising technical problems, privacy issues, or personal concerns relating to the Electronic Bluebook,” said Ben Shipman, the co-president of the Student Association of Berkeley Law, in an email. “This semester specifically, we received 57 non-anonymous concerns in addition to more concerns raised by anonymous submissions, in-the-hall interactions, and students who came to SABL’s semesterly Town Hall in which they voiced concerns about the EBB.”
According to Berkeley Law spokesperson Alex Shapiro, the law school has been administering laptop-based exams for 15 years and campus has long-established procedures for managing a variety of technical issues. Electronic exam software is also common among law schools nationwide.
However, this fall, Shapiro said the law school returned to an earlier version of EBB for final exams after student concerns arose during the semester over the software.
Shapiro added in an email that Berkeley Law collaborated with the EBB’s developer to resolve the technical issues before moving forward with the software this spring. According to Shapiro, the law school has taken steps to address student concerns by providing loaner laptops, case-by-case support, practice tests and IT services.
“This semester, as of today, we have administered 14 midterm and early-ending class exams with minimal issues. The software’s automatic saving and recovery features are designed to prevent exam loss,” Shapiro said in the email.
EBB owner Chris Bombardo said EBB takes every report of system disturbances “seriously” and noted that UC Berkeley’s rollout faced unique challenges compared to the company’s other long-term clients.
Bombardo confirmed that EBB has admin access to data, meaning the software can access .plist files, application support folders and document folders.
Bombardo emphasized that the software does not read anything from the documents folder as its only function is to save an encrypted copy of the exam into the documents folder as a backup. If developmental efforts succeed, EBB will discontinue its access to users’ documents folder by late summer, he added.
According to Shipman, EBB’s level of access to student data is a common concern among law students, especially students active in pro-bono legal work within legal aid organizations or clinic programs that require sensitive client information to be downloaded onto students’ computers.
Student Association of Berkeley Law Co-President Dexter Lim added that some international students with sensitive personal documents related to immigration status are uncomfortable with this software.
For example, one second-year law student who chose to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation from the law school administration shared that he opted to borrow a different laptop for exams. He said this was because his work prohibited him from installing software with kernel-level access on his device through a non-disclosure agreement.
However, Bombardo clarified that EBB has admin-level access, not kernel-level access.
“Our goal is to make EBB as least invasive as possible while maintaining the necessary security for high-stakes testing,” Bombardo said in an email.