What is Safe Exam Workspace
Safe Exam Workspace (SEW) is a software application used to securely take an exam at Imperial, either using students’ own devices or on devices managed by the College. Safe Exam Workspace temporarily locks a student’s screen to prevent access to unauthorised websites or desktop applications during the exam.
Exam security settings including accessible URLs and available desktop applications are defined by staff using the Schoolyear dashboard https://dashboard.exams.schoolyear.app.
Exams are made available to students through the provision of a unique 6 digit code, entered by students at https://exams.schoolyear.app/, which triggers the launch of the Safe Exam Workspace software that applies the security settings to their device.
Whilst the security of the exam is set by the SEW settings, the content of the exam and submission mechanism needs to be defined in a different application – typically WISEflow - which is made available via SEW. This application will hold the student submissions for review/marking after the exam is completed.
Setting up a successful exam with Safe Exam Workspace
Several steps are required to create a successful and secure exam with Safe Exam Workspace that require the involvement of academics, administrators and faculty learning technologists.
Planning the exam
Once the exam content has been decided by the exam authors, security requirements need to be defined by the course team and exams office to ensure the academic integrity of the assignment. Considerations include:
- The date
- Location and duration of the exam
- Whether the exam should use College PCs or allow students to use their own devices
- Which desktop applications and websites should be available to students during the test
- Whether students require access to documents to take the test
- How students will submit their work
- Students familiarisation levels with the SEW software
- Any extra time requirements that may be needed
Setup and support
Retrieving student submissions
Student submissions can be retrieved from the test application (such as WISEflow) and shared with markers. The SEW activity log and overview will remain available via the Schoolyear dashboard for review.
