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Using Safe Exam Browser

Using Safe Exam Browser

Nov 22, 2022

Introduction

Since Moodle 3, Safe Exam Browser (SEB) has been an optional environment that can be used to run Quiz activities for Moodle.

In the past this has been a more complicated process to set up, but since Moodle 3.X the Quiz module has been extended with some additional features to allow SEB to be configured directly from Moodle, for each specific activity.

Configuration

Enabling SEB

Within the Quiz activity, SEB is enabled via the "Safe Exam Browser" section of the activity's settings.

There are are 3 options to enable SEB, and they determine how the configuration for SEB is deployed to the students.

To configure SEB via the Moodle Quiz activity choose Yes - Configure Manually.

Configuration Options

Depending on the configuration selected, different options will appear. In this case we are focusing on the "Yes - Configure Manually" option as this is allows Moodle to define the configuration. The other options may be suitable in other use-cases.

For a full list of the options and explanation see Moodle's Documentation on the Safe Exam Browser Settings. Only the key ones are covered below.

Show Safe Exam Browser download button

In University Central PC labs, SEB should be installed already, so you may only wish to enable this if you are expecting the activity to be done on student's own devices or locations where it is not already available.

Enable quitting of SEB

Typically this should be set to Yes, to allow the user to exit the activity.

Enable Reload in exam

Typically this should be set to Yes, to allow the user to reload the page in case of an issue.

Enable URL Filtering

Setting this option to Yes will enable further options.

For full details about the networking restrictions see SEB Config Network Pane details.

Filter also embedded content

Any embedded resources will have filtering conditions applied to them.

Expressions Allowed

Can contain the filtering expressions URLs that will be allowed. Use of the wildcard character '*' is possible. 1 per line.

Examples for expressions:

'example.com' or 'example.com/stuff/*'. 'example.com' matches 'example.com', 'www.example.com' and 'www.mail.example.com'. 'example.com/stuff/*' matches all requests to any subdomain of 'example.com' that have 'stuff' as the first segment of the path.

If you wish to permit any URL to be accessible add an * expression.

Regex Allowed

Can contain a Regular Expression (RegEx) format filtering expressions for allowed URLs. 1 per line.

Expressions Blocked

Can contain the filtering expressions URLs that will be blocked. Use of the wildcard character '*' is possible. 1 per line.

Examples for expressions:

'example.com' or 'example.com/stuff/*'. 'example.com' matches 'example.com', 'www.example.com' and 'www.mail.example.com'. 'example.com/stuff/*' matches all requests to any subdomain of 'example.com' that have 'stuff' as the first segment of the path.

Regex Blocked

Can contain a Regular Expression (RegEx) format filtering expressions for blocked URLs. 1 per line.

Block rules are processed first. The URL will be blocked if it matches one of these rules. 

Allow rules are processed second, and the URL be permitted if it matches one of these rules.

If a URL fails to match any block rule or any allow rule, it is discarded and not loaded.

Running

TODO

Known Issues

Multiple Displays are not supported

Currently multiple displays connected to a PC are not supported by the Moodle configuration and will cause SEB to shut down. 

Multiple displays may be permitted via a custom config file.