Safe Exam Browser

Safe Exam Browser for in-class exams in Moodle

Safe Exam Browser is a free browser application that runs on the student’s computer and locks out other applications while it’s running. This makes it harder for students to consult alternative internet sources in the context of a classroom environment where you can observe their behavior during a test or quiz.

Use the Quiz activity

This tool can be required when using the Quiz functionality in Moodle for multiple-choice, true/false and for essay questions. Like all Quizes in Moodle, you have lots of options in how to set things up, and you can use your question library in creating the quiz elements.

First, we recommend that you set up a practice exam with your students for at least a week before your actual exam, in order for students to become familiar with the interface, and for them to download the Safe Exam Browser software onto the computer they’ll be using for the exam (this is assuming you’re asking them to use their own computer. If you’ll be using a computer classroom (Singer 222, or Martin 127, then the Safe Exam Browser software should already be installed on those machines).

Some recommendations about quiz settings

In order to use Safe Exam Browser, you need to make sure that you have set things up correctly. Please particularly review our Safe Exam Browser Setting Recommendations for the Safe Exam Browser section of the Quiz Settings!

Timing

Set a time limit for your exam. We recommend that you make choices about things like whether students can quit and come back to the exam (best to say no to that), and how much grace period do they have to close and submit the exam once their time limit has expired. We also recommend that you allow a grace period when open attempts can be submitted, but no more questions answered.

Grade

Set a grade category for the exam in your course. (Or not, if this is a practice exam.)

Layout

We recommend a new page for every question for essay exams. You can also choose between Free (students can go back and forth) or Sequential navigation.

Question behavior

Do you want the parts within each question to be randomly shuffled? Is there feedback to the students? Review Options Details of whether, when and if feedback is provided to students.

Safe Exam Browser

This is where you set the quiz to use Safe Exam Browser or not. There are lots of settings available, here are our recommendations: Safe Exam Browser Settings Recommendations

Extra restrictions on attempts and Overall feedback

Standard settings for quizzes here - choose how you normally would.

Check and Testing

We recommend that, if you are asking students to take the exam with their own computers, that you first ascertain whether each student actually has a functioning laptop computer to bring to class for this purpose. ITS has a limited number of loaner laptops that faculty can check out for short periods, but we currently do not have the volume of laptops available to loan students for this purpose, if more than one or two are needed at a time.

Grading

Please touch base with your Academic Technologist for help with a tool that can turn the submitted Safe Exam Browser entries into more useful PDF file(s) for grading purposes.