Instructor Notes on Using Canvas

Using the LockDown Browser

Using the LockDown browser makes it much more difficult for a student to use unauthorized resources during an exam, at least from their computer. I find I can proctor a large, in-person group effectively when using the LockDown browser. But it's important that students be given a trial run before the exam so they don't spin wheels during the exam setting up the browser.

To set this up:

1. Create a simple quiz in your course, for example a multiple-choice quiz with two simple questions. SWE 2410 instructors can search for "Lockdown Browser Design Pattern Questions" for a pre-built quiz. Some hints on setting up quizzes:
   • I typically put no text in the Quiz Instructions box so it doesn't take space on the screen. I put any instructions in question 1.
   • Select Shuffle Answers, set the Time Limit to something appropriate (no longer than 52 minutes for a standard lecture period), clear Let Students See Their Quiz Responses.
   • I typically set Show one question at a time to make it harder to publish the full exam to an online exam repository.
   • Set the Due and Until times appropriately.
   • I often save at this point in case I accidentally click on the Cancel button later, but that's optional.
   • In the Questions tab, click Find Questions, scroll down to SWE 2410 Lockdown Browser (if you are going to reuse these questions; you can also simply create your own), Select All, scroll to the end of the right pane, click on Add Selected Questions.
   Click Save.
2. Enable the Lockdown Browser for your course:
   1. Open the Canvas course and click on Settings
   2. Visit the Navigation tab.
   3. Scroll down to LockDown Browser, click on the triple-dot menu, select Enable.
   4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Save
3. Using the Canvas course menu (typically on the left side), click on LockDown Browser. Find your exam/quiz and click on the downarrow to open Settings. Select Require Respondus LockDown Browser for this exam.
4. Ensure Don't require proctoring for this exam is set. Students and others report many problems with automated proctoring, and researchers report it treats persons of color very differently than people with light skin.
5. I open Advanced Settings and clear Require LockDown Browser to view post-exam feedback and results.
6. Click Save + Close

You can now publish your quiz or exam. I typically allow Multiple Attempts on this quiz so students can try out different setups.

The same basic procedure works for setting up exams as well. Besides more challenging questions, I do the following:

• Clear Let Students See Their Quiz Responses. For midterm exams I will manually reset this after the exam is graded so students can see their reponses and the expected responses, but you might be able to set the date. Keep this box cleared for finals.
• I do not set access codes. It's not clear that having an access code provides any assurance of who is taking the exam since in-room students can easily message the code to someone else.
• Be sure to set up the Due date and Until date for students who have time-and-a-half accommodations before the exam starts. Changing these during the exam has no effect. A simple model is to give a 50-minute time limit to all students but set the Due/Until entries to allow later submission, then use Moderate This Quiz option to give the students who need it extra time. But you can also add assignments for specific students (in the Assign to box) so they have the later due date.
• Canvas allows questions to be set up with uploaded responses. You can use this for drawings. Contact me (hasker) if you want to do this - I have some tricks. However, I find this process to be challenging for many students, and I find it easier to set up the question as an upload but explicitly say the upload is not required, then give them a blank piece of paper for their responses and collect those at the end.

Monitoring LockDown Browser Exams

• If the student accidentally clicks off the browser, often the LockDown browser will notify you that they tried to leave the exam. If a student does this a lot, you will want to talk to them. But this happens frequently due to mistakes, so I do not penalize students for leaving.
• It has happened that a student was forced to restart the exam. For example, this happens when I forget to give time-and-a-half students the extra time. You can increase the number of attempts so they can retake the exam. When they do, they will not have access to their previous answers, but you will. There will be a dropdown that allows you to see both submissions, and I typically just copy the scores from one submission to the other.

Random Notes on Canvas Quizzes

• Most people recommend using Classic Quizzes. The New Quizzes feature is not mature (as of 2023).
• It can be useful to enter a sample response for essay questions. However, canvas captures these as of the time the student takes the exam; any changes you post later will not appear in Canvas when students review the exam.
• There is a procedure to print the exam to a PDF that captures grading marks. See MSOE Stack Overflow.