Lockdown Browser and Full Excel Access

[hewei]

Hi I teach an excel course and the exam is all about advanced excel functions (including custom add-ins). It troubles my course administration that the Respondus Lockdown Browser does not allow one to use Excel in a "separate" window, again not about a "spreadsheet plugin of the lockdown browser", but I am talking about the Full Excel program in a separate window. Please allow this functionality as an option ASAP thanks .

[nwilson7 · Accepted solution]

@hewei While the Respondus lockdown browser is something that works with Canvas, it is not a Canvas product.  You will want to raise this concern with Respondus.  We use one of Respondus' competitors, Proctorio, as it does allow for this.  You have to make the exam a little less secure by not forcing everything in the Canvas window but since it is still recording the screen, any "cheating" would be logged.  Ironically our instructor that uses this the most is also an Excel teacher 😉

Hope this helps!

-Nick

[nwilson7 · Accepted solution]

@hewei While the Respondus lockdown browser is something that works with Canvas, it is not a Canvas product.  You will want to raise this concern with Respondus.  We use one of Respondus' competitors, Proctorio, as it does allow for this.  You have to make the exam a little less secure by not forcing everything in the Canvas window but since it is still recording the screen, any "cheating" would be logged.  Ironically our instructor that uses this the most is also an Excel teacher 😉

Hope this helps!

-Nick

[ErnestoAldana · Accepted solution]

I couldn't get this to work with Excel, but if you're willing to use Google Sheets, you can add a link to a spreadsheet that your students can use. In this way, a new tab will open within LockDown Browser and they'll be able to use Sheets "normally". Just get a shareable link (that anyone can view) and change the last part of the link to "copy" (link below):

https://support.google.com/docs/thread/22231997/establish-a-google-sheet-as-a-template-and-allow-mul...