Establishing Settings for Secure Exams

To make an exam secure as well as define other settings for a test, follow the steps listed below and refer to the Settings Availability screen.

1. Select the Settings Tab along the top of Respondus' main development page.
2. Select the Availability tab along the left side of the Settings screen.
3. Type in instructions for your exam. These will be displayed at the beginning of a test.
4. The Make exam visible to students checkbox enables students to see an exam as soon as it is published to Blackboard. If you are using the Exam Pool option, however, you will still need to create the exam in Blackboard from the published question pool, post that exam to a Blackboard content area and select the make the test visible option within Blackboard before the exam would be available to students. If you are uploading the questions as an exam and not a pool or if you have already created an exam in Blackboard, you can make the exam visible to students by checking this option in Respondus and publishing those settings to Blackboard.
5. Check the Allow multiple attempts box if you plan on having multiple attempts available to students. Type the maximum number of attempts you want a student to take the test in the Number box. If you leave the Number box blank the exam can be taken an unlimited # of times.
6. Other options are Force Completion, Set time limit for Exam, Display After and Display Until options, Password protect option (see below) and Require LockDown Browser. The instructor generated password is not the same as Respondus' system generated password when the Lockdown browser option is selected.
7. Select the LockDown Browser checkbox if you want to make the exam secure. For more information on this feature see Using the LockDown Browser section below.
   

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Using the LockDown Browser

An instructor creates or converts test questions on his or her local computer system, selects the LockDown browser option and publishes the test to Blackboard. This setting can only be made within the Respondus Authoring Tool and cannot be made within Blackboard.

To activate the LockDown browser feature, the instructor checks the "Requires Respondus LockDown Browser for this exam " box.

The "At the end of the exam title, display the text 'Requires Respondus LockDown Browser' option will be checked automatically.

View more information on how to create a secure test using Respondus LockDown Browser. (Flash Movie).

In order to test the functioning of an exam using the LockDown browser, it is recommended that an instructor take a sample test at one of the ACC Testing Centers using a sample student.

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Instructor Generated Passwords

In addition to selecting Require Respondus LockDown Browser, an instructor can also require students or a proctor to enter an instructor-generated password to access an exam. The password protection option can only be used, however, if the instructor has made the LockDown Browser a requirement.

When the student launches an exam from a Testing Center, a screen will be displayed asking the student if the instructor has issued a password for the exam. If the student selects Yes and there has not been an instructor-generated password for the exam, the student will be unable to access the exam. It is important to notify your students if an instructor-generated password has been created for the exam so they will be able to access their exams.

NOTE: IF YOU MODIFY THE SYSTEM GENERATED RESPONDUS PASSWORD WITHIN BLACKBOARD, THE EXAM WILL NO LONGER BE SECURE AND WILL NOT WORK CORRECTLY.

Note: If you have already created a password for an exam within Blackboard, remove the password prior to uploading the new Respondus settings (i.e. LockDown browser, etc.). If you still want to add an instructor generated password in addition to the LockDown browser (not recommended), you can enter that instructor password in Respondus and then upload those settings to Blackboard.

Demonstration and more information on the LockDown Browser.

After you have established the settings for your exam, you are ready to publish the exam to Blackboard.

Before an exam can be available in Blackboard, the Respondus Authoring Tool needs to know where to put the exam information. When an instructor connects the Respondus Authoring tool to Bb for the first time, he or she must input such information as the Blackboard URL, and Blackboard log in, course and control panel information.

After the initial Bb connection has been made, an instructor can upload or publish an exam to Blackboard.