Canvas Quizzes Security Tips
To limit the potential for cheating and to keep students honest, we have gathered the below tips to help you. Please reach out to the ITS team if you need additional assistance or have any questions. 
Quiz Settings
Regardless if you are using New or Classic Quizzes, Settings will help you with assessment integrity. Make sure to correctly set up your settings with security in mind BEFORE publishing a quiz.
For New Quizzes, we recommend the follow settings Links to an external site. are turned on (see below): Shuffle questions, Shuffle answers, One question at a time (with backtracking if you prefer), and Require a student access code. The 'Restrict student result view' Links to an external site.depends on your individual preferences.
To increase randomization for shuffling questions, use the the Item Bank feature in New Quizzes Links to an external site..
For Classic Quizzes, we recommend the following Settings' options: Shuffle Answers, Show one question at a time (check Lock questions if you do not want them to backtrack), and Require an access code. Any other features are dependent on your preferences especially for 'Let Students See Their Quiz Responses.'
Please note Classic Quizzes does not allow you to shuffle questions. If you want this option, create a Question Group to randomize questions Links to an external site.. To increase randomization, have more question in the group than what you will have available on the Quiz, i.e. choose 10 questions from a Question Group of 30.
Formula Question Variables - When you create a “Formula Question," you can introduce variables and specify a range of values for each. When a student takes the quiz, Canvas will supply a randomly selected value within the range specified for each variable, resulting in different correct answers for different students.
Quiz Log Links to an external site. - Think of this feature as an overview of a student's Canvas history while they were completing the quiz.
Possible action log statuses include:
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- Viewed (and possibly read) a question [1] displays when a student is active on the quiz page, but has not answered the question.
- Answered a question [2] displays when a student has answered the question. If questions are shown being answered multiple times, the student either changed their answer(s), or the answer was generated by the quiz autosave feature.
- Stopped viewing the Canvas quiz-taking page [3] displays when a student navigates away from the quiz (closes the browser tab, opens a new browser tab, or navigates to a different program).
- Resumed [4] displays when the student has returned to the quiz.
Limit Access to Key Parts of a Course - If you are concerned about students accessing information within Canvas during a quiz, you can temporarily turn off the course pieces that may help them.
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- Modules - Unpublish or lock with a date.
- Remove hyperlinks to anything that may provide answers.
- Course Files & Folders - Unpublish or change visibility dates. Links to an external site.
- Pages - Unpublish to hide.
- Anything a student has submitted work for, i.e. Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, cannot be unpublished but you can hide grades and comments/feedback Links to an external site..
- Students still have access to anything created within their cloud drive (i.e. Google, Office 365) for an External Tools Assignment. However, the Quiz Log should show if they navigated away from Canvas.
- If you suspect a student of accessing something inside of Canvas during a quiz, look at the Student Access Report to view their activity. Go to People, choose the student, click on three vertical dots on right side and click on User Details and then Access Report. (Another option is to go to New Analytics, Reports, Course Activity and select Run Report to generate a CSV file of activity for the entire class.)
- Don't forget about your Grade Posting Policies Links to an external site. for a course! These will help you determine if you want Quizzes and other Assignments immediately available to students after grading. (Need a visual? Grade Visibility Flowchart Links to an external site.)