SEB Server: Reviewing and Archiving After an Exam
When an exam has finished, your work in SEB Server is not quite done. You can still review what happened, search the logs sent by connected Safe Exam Browsers, and decide whether to archive the exam so it stays available for the future. Exam Administrators and Exam Supporters who were on duty during the exam normally handle this tidy-up.
What this product is for
After an exam, you usually need to do three things: confirm everything went smoothly, gather information about any incidents you noticed, and put the exam into a tidy state for future reference. SEB Server keeps the indicator data, the client logs and the screen proctoring recordings, and gives you tools to read and search them. Archiving keeps the exam visible in SEB Server but locks it from further changes.
Main features
- A Finished Exams section in monitoring that lists exams that have already ended.
- Read-only access to indicator data and client logs after an exam.
- An All SEB Client Logs view for searching logs across many clients.
- Screen proctoring search across recordings by exam, user, time and metadata.
- Archive Exam to preserve an exam read-only after it has ended.
- Status filter on the exam list to find archived exams.
- Delete Exam to permanently remove an exam and its dependencies.
How to use it
Review a finished exam
- Sign in as an Exam Supporter or Exam Administrator assigned to the exam.
- Open the Monitoring section.
- Open Finished Exams.
- Find the exam in the list and open it.
You will see the same connection table you saw during the exam, but with no live updates. Open any client to read its final indicator values and the log events it sent during the session.
Search across SEB client logs
- From Monitoring, open All SEB Client Logs.
- Use the filters above the table to narrow the search by date, log type, client or content.
- Open individual log entries to see the full message.
This is the best place to look when you suspect the same type of issue has affected multiple students or multiple exams.
Search proctoring recordings
The screen proctoring interface keeps recordings of each session. Open it from the action on a finished exam, or directly from its left-hand menu, then:
- Use Search to look for sessions by exam, user, metadata or time.
- Use Applications to look at the applications students used across one or more exams, with screenshot counts per user and per application.
- Open the proctoring view on any session to scrub through the captured screenshots like a video.
See the screen proctoring article for the full detail of these views.
Archive an exam
Archiving keeps the exam in SEB Server, but freezes it. Archived exams no longer pull updates from Moodle and cannot be run again.
- Sign in as an Exam Administrator.
- Go to Exam Administration, then Exam.
- Open the finished exam.
- Choose Archive Exam from the action pane.
To find an archived exam later, open the exam list and set the Status filter to Archived. Archived exams also appear in the Finished Exams view in monitoring.
Delete an exam
Delete is final. The exam, its monitoring data and any related indicators are removed and cannot be recovered.
- Open the exam.
- Choose Delete from the action pane.
- Read the list of dependent items that will also be deleted.
- Choose to delete, or cancel and go back.
Common tasks
Confirm an exam ended cleanly. Open the exam in Finished Exams. Check the Last Ping Time column for any clients that disconnected unexpectedly. Open clients with red or amber values to see when they dropped and what the last log events were.
Investigate one student's session. Open the exam in Finished Exams, find the student in the connections table, open the detailed view and read the log history. If screen proctoring is enabled, jump to their session in the proctoring interface for a screenshot-by-screenshot view.
Look for a pattern across many exams. Use All SEB Client Logs and filter by the date range and any error text you remember. This can show whether the same warning hit several rooms or several exams.
Archive the term's exams in one tidy-up. Filter the exam list to those that have finished. Open each in turn and choose Archive Exam. Archived exams move out of the default view, leaving the active list clean.
Retire a Moodle site without losing the exam history. Archive every exam that came from the Moodle site first. Then deactivate the Moodle setup. The archived exams remain visible in SEB Server even though the underlying Moodle setup is no longer active.
Things to know
Archived exams are read-only. You cannot change indicators, configurations, restrictions or supporters on an archived exam, and Moodle no longer feeds them updates. If something needs to change, that change has to happen on a different exam.
Archived exams are hidden from the default exam list. Use the Status filter set to Archived to find them again.
Deleting an exam removes its monitoring data along with the exam. If you may want to refer back to logs, archive instead of delete.
Screen proctoring recordings live in the screen proctoring component, with retention controlled by your SEB Server deployment. The interface in SEB Server lets you search and review what is there but does not let you change retention from the user interface. Talk to whoever runs your SEB Server containers about retention if you need to align it with policy.
The Finished Exams section in monitoring is your one-stop view after an exam has ended. The same information is available, with slightly different navigation, by opening the exam under Exam Administration and using its detail view.
UK data protection rules apply to logs and screenshots in the same way they apply to other student records. Make sure your privacy notice reflects how SEB Server stores and uses that information.
Troubleshooting
I cannot find the exam I want to review. Check the Status filter on the exam list. If the exam has been archived, set the filter to Archived. If it was recently completed, check Finished Exams in monitoring.
The Archive Exam action is not available. Archive only applies to exams that have ended, based on the end time held in Moodle. Wait for the end time to pass.
I want to undo an archive. Archived exams are read-only. SEB Server does not provide an unarchive action. If you really need to run a similar exam again, import the Moodle quiz as a new exam.
I deleted an exam by mistake. Deletion is permanent. Recovery is only possible from your SEB Server backups, if any. Treat the Delete action with care.
Logs for a finished exam are missing or empty. Check that monitoring indicators were defined on the exam. Without indicators, the log table will still show messages from Safe Exam Browser but you will have less coloured detail to work with.
Frequently asked questions
How long are exam logs kept?
Retention is set in your SEB Server deployment, not in this user interface. Check with whoever runs your SEB Server containers.
Can I export logs to a spreadsheet?
Export of logs is not a standard feature of the monitoring view. You can copy individual log entries from the detail dialog if needed. For larger exports, talk to whoever runs your SEB Server containers.
What is the difference between archiving and deleting?
Archiving keeps the exam visible but read-only. Deleting removes it and its monitoring data permanently. Archive when in doubt.
Does archiving affect Moodle?
No. Archiving only changes SEB Server's view of the exam. The Moodle quiz itself is unchanged.
Can I reopen an archived exam?
No. Archived exams cannot be run again. Import the Moodle quiz as a new exam if needed.
Summary
After an exam, the Finished Exams view, All SEB Client Logs and the screen proctoring search are your tools for understanding what happened. Archive exams to keep them visible but locked, and delete only when you are sure the data is not needed.
These articles are produced and maintained by Essington ITS, a UK-based IT services provider specialising in the deployment of SEB Server the secure online assessment platform.
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