How can you prevent cheating in an online exam and prevent websearching?

Many clients have asked us: How can I prevent my (potential) students or employees from cheating? The question is simple but hard to answer if you don't know how. The most obvious way to cheat is to open a web browser and just search the answer to a question on the internet, no more!

Safe Exam Browser (SEB) is a program that allows teachers, employers, or whoever creates online tests to sleep at night. It basically disables any other applications so the participant taking the exam cannot cheat their way to success. The process to set it up and get it ready for your participants can be quite overwhelming, so it's explained below.

You can download and install Safe Exam Browser here. Choose the appropriate operating system and begin installation.

To configure SEB settings, open the SEB Config Tool. The window above will appear where you can choose an administrator password, which will give you access to edit the settings of SEB before examinees take their exam.

Also, provide a quit/restart password OR a quit link that enables examinees to quit SEB after they finish the exam. Uncheck the box labeled ''Ignore exit keys'' if you only want your examinees to be able to quit with a password (this lets you do a final check to see if they completed it).

Copy and paste the exam link into the Start URL field from your Easy LMS dashboard.

Check the box of _Use SEB settings file for... Starting an exam. Choose another password to encrypt your SEB settings file.

Choose what participants can and can't do when they start up the browser. Browser security options include:

You might also want to add a link to quit SEB after someone finishes the exam if you don't want your participants to exit with a password. Clicking that link will quit SEB without entering the quit password. If you want to enter a ''back to start URL'' enter it on this tab as well.

In this section, you can enable and disable applications that will be able to run while SEB is active. In the example above, only Firefox is permitted for use during the exam.

When you switch to the Prohibited Processes tab, you'll see all of the applications that will be disabled by default while SEB is running. You can add and remove applications from this list by clicking on the + or - buttons below the list of applications. Simply enter the Executable and Original Name of the application to add it to the Prohibited Processes list. Just click on any application in this list to view an example.

If you do allow browsing on the internet, you can block certain websites by activating URL filtering. To do this, simply select the + button and add the URLs you want to block to the Expression field. Then select Block in the Action field.

We all know that Ctrl + Alt + Del opens the Windows Security Screen when pressed simultaneously. On this screen, you can open the Task Manager, log off, or even shut down the computer.

To prevent a participant from doing this, you can disable all of these functions in the Registry section. Some actions that can be blocked include:

Some keys on our keyboards have special functions, including all Function keys. To block all of the actions that can be taken with these special keys when SEB is active, simply check the boxes of the keys you want to disable during the exam.

After you feel like your exam settings are good, you can save them in the Config File section. Save the settings file and make sure you remember all passwords you entered in each field, and that the SEB settings are saved for starting an exam. Give the file an appropriate name. Make sure to communicate the password of your exam to your participants if you have enabled a password to start the file, they can't open it. You can now send the file to your participants!

You might want to create multiple SEB files if you have more than one exam or when multiple exams are to be taken simultaneously. Assuming you were successful in creating your first SEB file by following the instructions above, please follow these steps to create multiple SEB files:

You now have a second SEB file, and you can create many more that lead to each different exam with the same (or different) settings. Make sure you test the files first, just to be sure.

If you have enabled a predefined group of participants, then the first thing your participants will see is the login screen. However, if you use SEB, they won't be able to get the access code after they open the file unless you allow them to open an application. Therefore, you either need to tell your participants to copy the access code before opening the file or have them write it down on paper so they can enter it manually.

For the entire explanation file on setting up an SEB file, click here.

Combine this with the tips and tricks of this article, and you're good to go!

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