I at least partially share this sentiment for hiring interviews. In that setting, the goal of any kind of coding exercise is to evaluate a persons coding skills

I at least partially share this sentiment for hiring interviews. In that setting, the goal of any kind of coding exercise is to evaluate a persons coding skills in a real-world environment. For something like that, it does not make much sense to hobble the developer by artificially limiting their access to coding resources that are normally employed while on the job. However, I feel like an academic exam is a bit different. The goal of these exams is to evaluate what students have _learned_. Unless the class was about how to find helpful code examples on SO, it does not make much sense to allow AI/internet-searching during the exam.