8.12 Safe Exam Browser

Safe Exam Browser is a third party browser designed specifically for online assessment. It allows exam systems like risr/assess to have control over the environment that the candidate has when taking the exam. For example, you might want to prevent candidates looking up something on another website or using any other application that may be on the desktop.

If you want to run written exams online and restrict the candidate's access to other applications using risr/assess you will need to configure Safe Exam Browser.

You will use a combination of Safe Exam Browser settings and a configuration file to set up the features you want. There are two main scenarios:

• Dedicated exam device - If you have one or a number of devices used for exams, you will probably set them up and not change their configuration very often. In these cases, every time Safe Exam Browser is started, it will default to the settings you have installed. Although we recommend setting up a configuration file, it is also possible to use Safe Exam Browser to set up a single device without a configuration file. We'll explain how in the instructions below.

• Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) - In this case, candidates will install Safe Exam Browser and receive your exam configuration file. Safe Exam Browser will only use those settings temporarily and default back to their original settings when it closes. This might be useful if candidates need to use the software for exams from different organisations.