safe exam browser

With some campuses seeing more interest by some instructors to employ lockdown browsers, a deeper dive back into Safe Exam Browser was done by a collective of Moodle HackDoc Winter 2026 participants: Jason Alley (Lafayette College), Gerard Gadigian (Connecticut College), Jim Nicnick (Lafayette College), and Andrew Ruether (Swarthmore College). CLAMP previously looked at this tool during the Winter 2021 Hack/Doc.

Overview

Safe Exam Browser (SEB) is a browser application that locks computers into a secure, full-screen mode for online quizzes and exams. Its purpose is to prevent access to unauthorized websites, applications, and system functions on a student’s device while engaging with the exam to eliminate the likelihood of cheating. While the browser is running in full-screen mode, keyboard shortcuts, screen capturing, internet browsing, and all applications not allowed by the exam configuration are disabled. The browser cannot be exited until the exam has been submitted if the instructor applies the setting in the configuration.

SEB is a free, open-source application intended for use on devices running on Windows, Mac, and iOS operating systems.

What worked well

SEB works only with the Moodle Quiz activity. Therefore, the user interface (UI) for SEB is available only within the Moodle Quiz activity. The standard functions behave as expected. Some functions to note:

Enabling access to the camera and microphone: this function provides students the ability to use their device’s camera and/or microphone to complete a Moodle Quiz question (i.e., using WebRTC). This is not used to proctor or surveil students.
URL filtering: To allow students access to specific websites, it’s possible to enable URL filtering. To achieve this, the instructor needs to enable URL filtering, which is off by default, and then enter the allowed URL(s) in the “Expressions allowed” field. Each allowed URL should be listed on its own line and omit the protocol (https://). Because the SEB does not provide Forward and Back navigation like a typical browser, it’s important to create allowed links in the Moodle Quiz question to open in a new window/tab. We discovered it’s also important when URL filtering is enabled, to also include one’s Moodle domain (e.g., moodle.lafayette.edu/*) with the asterisk wildcard serving as a catch-all for all sites on the Moodle domain.

What worked, but not so well

Unexpected computer behavior: When SEB launches, it closes many applications on one’s computer and can leave browser windows/tabs in odd states requiring a refresh. The macOS version does not warn the user ahead of time–the Windows version does–that many applications will be closed. It is recommended to give the students forewarning that many applications will close and to save work prior to starting the quiz.
Download site: The default SEB download site, after the download begins, redirects one to a confusing SourceForge page with links to what may be malware. The license for SEB looks to allow an institution to host its own download files.
SEB templates: There is an option for templates to be used when configuring SEB. This is complicated by the fact that you cannot use the SEB utility to set up the templates. You must configure a quiz manually from within Moodle, and then download the configuration file from the quiz. Then the config file can be uploaded by a Moodle admin via Administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Quiz > Safe Exam Browser templates.

What didn’t work

Manually customizing the .seb file: Because the Moodle interface provides limited configurations, we attempted, unsuccessfully, to customize the .seb file, which serves as the configuration file for Safe Exam Browser. We wanted to see if it was possible to customize the .seb file to allow for the launching of applications like Word, which is not a configuration setting in Moodle Quiz. In our experience, the only way to successfully change the .seb file was to update the Moodle Quiz SEB settings.
Safe Exam Browser on iOS: The SEB iOS app didn’t provide any lockdown functions.
Safe Exam Browser on Android OS: There is currently no official Android compatible version of SEB.

Recommendations for using Safe Exam Browser

Set up a practice, no or low-stakes quiz in one’s course to ensure the students are able to access and take the quiz. This may also help reduce any anxiety surrounding the use of SEB.
Remind students that when SEB is launched, it will close many applications on their computer, so they should save any work in progress to ensure nothing is lost.
Use for in-person, proctored exams to provide in-person support should questions arise.
Only use built-in Moodle Quiz Safe Exam Browser functions–don’t try to customize the .seb file manually.
If including links in questions, set them to “Open in new window” because Safe Exam Browser doesn’t include navigation buttons to go back. Use “Expressions allowed” to limit access to specific websites:
- Don’t include https:// when adding URLs to the list
- Each URL should be listed on its own line
- Add /* after one’s Moodle domain to ensure access to all Moodle access is available (e.g., moodle.lafayette.edu/*)
- Add /* after domain to allow for access to all pages on a site
Have a backup plan such as having extra computers on hand for those students who may not have a compliant device, or use Blue Books.

Moodle 3.10 allows you to view folder content in the browser

The biannual Hack/Doc Fest is being held online on the gather.town platform. The event kicked off on Tuesday, January 12, 2021, and runs through Thursday, January 14. The following tasks are queued up for Hack/Doc (very much subject to change):

Evaluating Moodle 3.9, released last summer
Evaluating Moodle 3.10, released last November
Using the Filtered Course List block with the mobile app
Whether to use the new integrated H5P or continue using the plugin

From the task list

Moodle 3.10 Liberal Arts Edition release

The first Moodle 3.10 LAE release is ready for testing. In a welcome change from past releases, there are no major core changes affecting LAE functionality.

Download course content

Moodle 3.10 adds a feature to download content from a course. This is similar to the functionality in the Download instructor files plugin but superior in several ways.

There are two settings for administrators in Site administration > Courses > Download course content:

Whether to enable the feature at all (it’s off by default)
The maximum size of any file included in the download. By default, it’s 50 MB. When students go to download course content they will be informed of the limit.

Turning the feature on enables another setting in Site administration > Courses > Course default settings:

Whether to enable the feature in courses by default. At least in a clean 3.10 install, this enabled the feature for existing courses, because those courses were set to use the site default.

The downloaded file is a single zip. It contains some bare-bones HTML files for ease of navigation. Group restrictions work correctly. Files are organized into folders based on resources. Currently, four activity types are supported: files, folders, pages, and labels.

Folder display

Moodle 3.10 enables the viewing of content in folders directly from the browser. CLAMP has advocated for this functionality since 2012 and we’re pleased to see it available. Folders continue to force download by default, but there’s now a checkbox to turn that behavior off. That leaves it up to the browser to download or display the file, depending on its type. PDFs and images, for example, will open directly in the browser instead of downloading.