In order to create an equitable testing environment and to save an incredible amount of paper, we will use the Lockdown Browser to enable electronic testing. This allows you as students to complete these programming tasks on a computer (the same way you practice) and allows our course staff a more efficient way to grade responses equitably across the huge number of submissions we receive.
Please note that we DO NOT be using Lockdown “Monitor” (which utilizes your webcam and other monitoring sensors). We will simply be using the Lockdown browser which prevents you from using other applications on your computer while taking the exam.
All this program does is prevent you from using other applications on your computer as the same time you’re taking the assessment. If you’d like to review their Privacy Policy to see which data it has access to please visit their Privacy page. Keep in mind we will only use it for the in-class Quizzes for this course meaning you are free to un-install it after each Quiz if you choose.
Note that depending on your operating system, it may ask for different permissions:
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On Windows computers, it will ask you to use “Administrator Privileges” to install and to run. This is so it can close all open applications on your computer when it’s launched.
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On macOS computers, it will ask for few things:
- Your administrator password to install the application and its accompanying System Extension (only active when the application is open).
- Access to your Downloads folder. It does this download updates during its launch process.
If you feel uncomfortable installing this application for any reason you can:
- Checkout a short-term loaner laptop from the university library
- Ask the Instructor at least 1 business day prior to the assignment to see if a CS Department loaner laptop is available
- Take the Quiz on paper
Note, the LDB gets updated periodically so it's important that before each Quiz you try out the "LDB" version of the Practice Quiz for that Quiz.. This makes sure that your LDB app is updated and that you don’t have to wait around for it to update before taking your Quiz.
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You will need to download Lockdown Browser to your computer or device. Note, if you have trouble downloading from this page, you go to our Canvas page and then go to the FILES menu and download the EXE (for windows) or ZIP (for Mac) file to install it (they’re located in the Lockdown Browser Installer folder).
If you encounter an error with Multi-factor Authentication within the Lockdown Browser (“Duo Authentication”), you might only have one MFA method registered with NUIT. It’s easiest to fix this by adding the “Duo Verified Push” method as a backup. To do so, you can follow these instructions from NUIT.
Chromebook Users: To install the LDB on a Chromebook, just open up Canvas, navigate to the Quiz that requires LDB and you’ll be presented a link to download an install the LDB as a Chrome Extension. You’ll be redirected to the Chrome web store, select Add to Chrome to install the LDB. More details here.
Windows Users: If you have trackpad gestures enabled, the LDB is very sensitive to swipes with three fingers (i.e. move to another Windows space). It might be worth it to take a moment to disable your trackpad gestures prior to each Quiz just to avoid any issues.