U036 – Using Widgets in Safe Exam Browser

Safe Exam Browser (or "SEB" for short) is a free browser environment for secure digital assessments. The software temporarily converts the user's device into a secured environment that regulates and limits access to services and external applications. Restrictions may be imposed on system functions, and other websites or programs. As such, SEB can prohibit the consultation of course materials during an exam. More info can be found on the Safe Exam Browser website.

This article covers the following topics:

1. General information
2. Installing Safe Exam Browser
3. Settings
4. Known multimedia issues

General information

How to use widgets within SEB:

1. SEB needs to be installed on every student's individual device. SEB is available for iOS, Windows and macOS;
2. In the editor of your widget, enable General > Safe Exam Browser;
3. Widgets must be shared inside a supported LMS integration (e.g.: Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Canvas…).

The SEB option is available for the following widget types:

• Quiz
• Worksheet
• Split Worksheet
• Video Quiz

When SEB mode is enabled for any of the above widget types, students can only open the respective widgets inside Safe Exam Browser. When trying to open such a widget, students will be redirected to a signin procedure in which they confirm that they want to run Safe Exam Browser. A startup password will be prompted. When entering the password correctly, Safe Exam Browser will launch and load the widget. From that moment onwards, the student will be locked inside Safe Exam Browser until they submit the widget. Only then, they will be able to click a link for exiting SEB again.

If Safe Exam Browser is not installed on the student's device, they won't be able to open the widget. This will be indicated by a black screen with a prohibition symbol.

How to install Safe Exam Browser

SEB can be downloaded from the Safe Exam Browser downloads page.

Widget Settings

Basic Settings

SEB can be enabled in General > Safe Exam Browser. The following 2 parameters have to be configured:

• Settings password: the password students require for being able to start the exam
• Quit/unlock password: a password that can be used to exit Safe Exam Browser without submitting the exam. Exam supervisors should have this password available in case of technical issues. It should not be handed to students.

Advanced Settings

The menu Advanced lets you upload an .SEB configuration template for SEB-specific settings.

Visit de SEB website for more information regarding the setup of config files for Windows or Mac.

You can find a download link for a SEB config file with these settings further down.

Screen reader / Sprint

SEB can be made compatible with screen reader software, too. Students who have such software installed on their devices, can launch the software after having entered the SEB startup password. Safe Exam Browser allows this software thanks to the configuration file. Students who do not have the software available to them, may need to close a popup error message up to 3 times before being able to continue without.

Specifically for the screen reader Sprint, we would like to remark that it consists of three components:

• Skippy: the word predictor / auto-complete function.
• Sprinter: the screen reader / text-to-speech function.
• SprintPlus: a text editor.

It is worth pointing out that SprintPlus in particular allows the import of texts from the hard drive. This means that nothing impedes students from, let's say, preparing course notes or test answers and consulting them through SprintPlus' document import option, despite the SEB environment. Depending on your use case, it may therefore be worth considering not allowing SprintPlus. This consideration does not apply to the other two components in Sprint.

Click any of the links below to download a .SEB config file that is compatible with:

• YouTube
• Skippy + Sprinter
• Skippy + Sprinter + SprintPlus
• YouTube, Skippy + Sprinter
• YouTube, Skippy + Sprinter + SprintPlus

Known multimedia issues

There are a few issues that BookWidgets users have reported where Safe Exam Browser exhibits bugs with particular types of multimedia. The following issues are known to the BookWidgets team.

Text-to-speech

Screen reader error: No voice available for [language]

For its text-to-speech options, BookWidgets borrows its voices from the browser. If the browser is Safe Exam Browser, then in turn, voices are borrowed from the device's operating system. This means that in order for text-to-speech to work inside Safe Exam Browser, a voice must be installed on the device. Notably Windows distinguishes language packs from text-to-speech languages. Check the proper setup of your Windows device by following the steps in this Windows helpdesk article. If the device runs on Windows 10/11, do not forget about the Speech settings of the second paragraph.

Video playback issues

File type (self-uploaded videos)

If you upload a video into a widget from your device and enable SEB mode for it, the ability for SEB to play the video files depends on a combination of the file format and the operating system:

• SEB on Windows devices cannot play .mp4 video files.
• SEB on iOS (Mac) devices cannot play .webm video files.

This means that if your students use Windows devices, the video files you upload to your widget ought to be in .webm format and vice-versa. If your students are on mixed devices, consider uploading the video to your widget (using "Switch to rich text" options) twice: once in every format, so that every student will be able play one of both videos.

Embedded YouTube videos

In the second half of 2023, BookWidgets users started reporting issues playing embedded YouTube videos inside Safe Exam Browser. YouTube videos may sometimes refuse to play inside Safe Exam Browser if the video quality is too low. If you are the owner of the YouTube video, try re-uploading it in 1440p or 4K video (in YouTube). Technical details can be found here:

https://github.com/SafeExamBrowser/seb-win-refactoring/discussions/813