With fall exams around the corner, many professors are requiring students to use lockdown browsers. 

As part of Spring Hill College’s plan to combat large numbers of COVID-19 cases, they are asking students to stay at home after Thanksgiving break. This plan would reduce any chance of students contracting the virus while traveling back and forth for the holidays. 

For students, this means having to take final exams online like last semester. In order to make sure that students are following testing guidelines, professors have figured out ways to reduce the chances of cheating. 

In the past there have been variations of exams handed out when testing took place in-person. With testing being online, students can search up answers for test or look through notes. 

Many professors are having students purchase and download LockDown Browsers in order to ensure no student is cheating. 

The browser locks down Schoology so that the student can not access other websites while testing. Dwight Spivey also mentions that the companion for the browser is Monitor, which uses video recording. 

This is the program that costs $15 every 12 months to use. 

As far as whether the student will have to purchase it for each class, Spivey says, that the program “includes unlimited access to all Monitor-proctored exams in every Spring Hill College course that requires it for the duration of those 12 months.”

Spivey also says that the most common issue with the browser is the “No Server Found” error. Which according to Spivey is more of a user error rather than a browser error. The best way to resolve the issue he says is to try and uses a different browser. 

Most professors have added this requirement to their syllabus at the beginning of the semester to prepare the student to purchase it. 

For more questions about LockDown Browder, contact Dwight Spivey at dspivey@shc.com  or review class syllabi.