Moodle Quiz Safe Exam Browser student guide

You may need to take a Moodle Quiz in a locked down browser environment which limits your access to external resources and websites.

Moodle works with a locked down browser called Safe Exam Browser (SEB). The guidance below explains how to download Safe Exam Browser and use it to complete a Moodle Quiz.

Your course tutor should tell you in advance of your assessment if using Safe Exam Browser is required and give you an opportunity to practice using Safe Exam Browser.

This guidance should be read alongside the general guidance on Moodle Quiz.

Download the Safe Exam Browser

It is essential that you download Safe Exam Browser and test it before the day of any assessment. Safe Exam Browser is already installed in PC cluster rooms.

You can install it on your own device from the Safe Exam Browser downloads page.

Note. Safe Exam Browser does not work on ChromeOS.

  1. Simply click on the relevant download button depending on your device’s operating system.

Windows download button
macOS download button

 

  1. The download should start automatically. Wait for it to complete.

 

  1. Open the downloaded file and follow the installation instructions.

Before accessing a quiz

Make sure you have downloaded the Safe Exam Browser as explained above.

Before starting a Safe Exam Browser Quiz, you should:

  1. Turn off any additional monitors.

  2. Quit all applications apart from the web browser you are using to access Moodle.

  3. Take a moment to remember your password – when you launch Safe Exam Browser you won’t have access to any saved passwords or password managers.

Accessing a quiz

When you open a Moodle Quiz which requires Safe Exam Browser, you will see up to three options:

  1. Download Safe Exam Browser

  2. Launch Safe Exam Browser

  3. Download Configuration

If you are in a PC cluster room, Safe Exam Browser will be installed as of the 2024/25 academic year. In an exam where you “Bring Your Own Device”, you should ideally have installed Safe Exam Browser already but if not you can click “Download Safe Exam Browser”.

Start the quiz by clicking “Launch Safe Exam Browser”.

 

 

Note. On rare occasions, when getting an error with launching the Safe Exam Browser, you may need to click Download configuration and run this file. In general, you can ignore this option.

You may be asked to Open Safe Exam Browser, in which case, Click “Open Safe Exam Browser” to proceed.

 

 

Safe Exam Browser will open, and you will need to login using the same standard UCL credentials that you use to access Moodle i.e. userID@ucl.ac.uk.

Attempting a quiz

Once logged in to the Safe Exam Browser and on the Quiz page, click the Attempt Quiz Now button to start your Quiz.

Note. Once the quiz starts, you won’t be able to switch to other windows or other applications unless your tutor has allowed this.

During a quiz

Questions per page vary in number depending on the format of the assessment.

When you move to the next page, your answers are saved, and the answered questions are shaded.
If you have Flagged a question this is indicated by a red triangle, so you can quickly return and review it.

Submitting a quiz

Click "Finish attempt” and then “Submit all and finish” to submit your answers.

After you have submitted, you can close Safe Exam Browser by clicking the "Terminate Session” button  in the bottom right of the screen.

 

Reviewing a quiz attempt

Depending on the set up of a Moodle Quiz, there may be the option to review your quiz attempt and receive feedback. 

The feedback that you can see depends on the specific quiz settings so please check with the staff contact for your module if you are uncertain. The types of feedback that can be displayed include:

  • overall quiz mark and grade,

  • whether you got the question correct or incorrect, 

  • the question grade,

  • question specific feedback and/or

  • general feedback comments.