Things have certainly also changed with the move to subscription models, like O365. Students can now reliably produce MS Office compatible documents in web browsers on any internet-connected computer or mobile device.
This is a big shift from just a few years ago where significantly fewer students had the hard drive space, internet, and know-how to download and manage multiple licensed versions or bitnesses of MS Office products. Since professors might require older versions of software that are incompatible with other courses at the school (or simply not be aware of the newer version available to them), there's not much students can do except hope the professor will listen to reason or not grade too harshly on something they might be getting entirely wrong.
Poor professoring (or TAing) is a good way to get a chair or dean involved, so it's rare to have things escalate too far, but it's still a big source of stress for students who might hold certain parts of the system in higher esteem than they rightfully deserve.
This is a big shift from just a few years ago where significantly fewer students had the hard drive space, internet, and know-how to download and manage multiple licensed versions or bitnesses of MS Office products. Since professors might require older versions of software that are incompatible with other courses at the school (or simply not be aware of the newer version available to them), there's not much students can do except hope the professor will listen to reason or not grade too harshly on something they might be getting entirely wrong.
Poor professoring (or TAing) is a good way to get a chair or dean involved, so it's rare to have things escalate too far, but it's still a big source of stress for students who might hold certain parts of the system in higher esteem than they rightfully deserve.