Be sure that students download the secure browser from our Securing Your Exam page.

Be sure that students have completed all of steps 1-3.

• Step 1: Secure Exam Browser Download
• Step 2: Exam Portal Download
• Step 3: Test the Safe Exam Browser

Often students will perform this download days or weeks before the exam date, and they may accidentally open the exam launch portal if they are not following the instructions closely from the web page. If a student is stuck at the login page, they will need to perform a hard reset of their device. A hard reset is holding down the power button, until the machine fully powers down. Students must be informed that clicking on the shutdown pop-up will not close out of the Secure Exam Browser (SEB), and they should ignore any pop-ups and just continue to hold the power button.

When they have fully powered off, they can power back on. If upon their starting of the computer they see a page regarding the SEB they can go to the banner at the top of the screen, choose SAFE EXAM BROWSER, click QUIT and this should restore the computer out of the SEB functions.

“Step 3: Test the Safe Exam Browser” includes a Sample login for you to be able to test your system. 

Login: Test234

Password: password (all lowercase letters)

     – Once you enter the platform, select START to begin the short sample exam.

     – Complete the 2-question sample exam. At the last question, choose to END TEST.

     – Click YES to submit the exam, and use the CLOSE BROWSER option.

     – If you receive a pop-up asking to leave the Safe Exam Browser, please use the QUIT option.

You are now prepared to take your exam on your device. If you have not already saved the file in a folder on your desktop, you will need to do the following: 

     – PC: Use the search in the lower left corner and find the file by typing .seb

     – MAC: Go to the downloads folder.

     – Drag the .seb file out to the desktop.

     – Create a folder titled “Aquifer Exam” and put that document into the folder.

You are now ready to take your Aquifer Exam. On exam day, launch this file and key in the specific login and password provided by the clerkship. 

If a student encounters a black/white/blue screen while attempting to launch the Secure Exam Browser to test it, most likely they have a compatibility issue with your device and our software, please verify that your device meets our technical requirements.

Note, the following are NOT compatible devices: tablet/Ipad, touch screen device, or tablet style computer–such as a Microsoft surface or Chromebook. 

Students should contact their clerkship if their device is incompatible or make arrangements to use a secondary device that can support our software.

If you are using a school device, the secure exam browser must be downloaded onto the Administrator’s account. Please be sure you have administrative privileges to this device, and make sure you are downloading the software on the Administrator’s account.

If at the beginning of the exam, the student receives an error reading that they have not “configured” SEB, this means they have not completed step 2 (“Download the Exam Portal Start File”) and should be directed to complete that step. Once they have downloaded the exam portal start file, they should be able to log in to their exam. If this does not work, please uninstall the Secure Exam Browser and reinstall it.

Students taking the Aquifer Internal Medicine Clinical Decision-Making exam do not need to set up the Secure Exam Browser.

The user login and password are case-sensitive.

Have the student/ proctor read the login and password while you look at the student handout or master list to verify that what they enter is correct. Also, verify that they are logging in to the Exam Launch Portal in the folder on the computer desktop (or wherever it was saved) and are not attempting to log in to Aquifer.org (This is a common mistake). The exam can only be launched through the second step, downloaded “Exam Portal.” If the exam does not launch, it is likely because the Exam Portal has not been downloaded.

The proctor/coordinator should have handed out an exam guide to each student for them to gain entry to the exam. The exam guides help students understand the function of some of the exam features and give them instructions on how to submit and log off the exam platform. The exam guides should be handed out only in the proctored environment and collected and destroyed after the exam is completed.

For video-proctored exams, if a student did not complete their Exam Check-in by two business days before taking the exam, they are not eligible to take the exam as scheduled. They will need to speak to their clerkship and make arrangements to reschedule their exam. (Note: Students receive an email confirmation when they check in.) 

For Internal Medicine Clinical Decision-Making Exam:

If you are taking the Aquifer Internal Medicine Clinical Decision-Making Exam and your proctor tells you they have already provided access, please try refreshing your screen. Once you see your exam course, you can click on the title of the course and begin the exam. If you continue to encounter issues, let us know.

If a student notices that the exam parameters are not correctly set (the timer is off, the buttons are not where they are supposed to be, or they are not functioning as they should), please call the helpline at 603-727-7002 ext. 2m or exams@aquifer.org so the exam can correct it, if possible.

If a student is supposed to receive an academic accommodation, and their timer is not set for the additional time, please get in touch with the helpline so this can be adjusted before the student begins the exam. Additional time cannot be added once the student starts the exam.

If a student sees a spinning wheel on their screen, like the system is thinking or waiting, ask if they received any pop-up notifications of issues with the device. If yes, they will need to address that. If not, it is most likely a latency issue, and they should refresh their screen:

     – For PC- Use the F5 button

     – For Mac – use Command R 

If that doesn’t work, try one more time. If it still does not work, hard reset your device:

• Hold the power button down, ignore any pop-ups from the computer, and keep holding the power button down.
• Once it is off, turn it back on. 
• Ensure that it is connected to the Internet–and that you have a good or excellent connection
• Launch the secure exam browser, and log in using your assigned login and password
• Click RESUME to restart your active exam
• You should go right back to where you left off

If the spinning wheel happens again, try refreshing it again

There are pop-up messages that are delivered to the student if the exam experiences micro-connectivity issues. If your students should see the alert messages below, please know that this is our exam system working as intended to identify slight local network interruptions and to be sure that the student’s response is properly recorded. (We understand that seeing these messages may create anxiety for your students, so we wanted to help you manage expectations and be able to reassure the student.)

Here are some messages your students may encounter:

If your students encounter this pop-up message, please let them know to choose CANCEL (which is a counter-intutive choice) in order to close the message box, and move back into the exam. They should use Command⌘ R (Mac) or F5 (Windows) to refresh the screen and continue moving through the exam. If the student does not hit CANCEL when receiving the Loading Page error, they will need to perform a hard reset of their machine and re-login to the exam. Please advise the student to verify that they have a saved answer for their last question.

If your students encounter these messages they should click OK, and be directed back into the exam question. If they do not see a question they can try to use the Command⌘ R (Mac) or F5 (Windows) to refresh the page/question.

In rare instances, the exam the screen may freeze (the Next, Previous, Review List, and Flag for Review buttons will be greyed out and inactive).

If the buttons do not become active (regain their color) within 10 seconds the student will need to refresh their screen. This can be done by clicking the F5 button on Windows computers or by simultaneously pressing the Command⌘ and the letter “R” keys on a Mac. This will refresh the screen. The student will then be brought back to the exam question on which they left off when the screen froze.

If the exam system indicates that a student has unanswered questions, ask them if they have lost connectivity or had any pop-ups during the exam. If they have, have them to go back to the REVIEW LIST and attempt to see if there are questions with no checkbox beside them. If there are questions without a checkbox, please have the student perform the process BELOW (step forward, step back) to attempt to correct.

If there are no questions missing a check box, ask the student to attempt to go back to the question they froze on, and perform the following steps:

Step forward/Step Back Process:

• If the student had previously selected an answer for a question and the answer was not recorded even though it will appear to have been selected, the student will need to select a different (e.g. an “incorrect”) answer and then click the “Next” button to advance to the next question.
• They will then need to click on the “Previous” button to return to the question on which the exam froze and re-select the answer they intend to submit.
• The student will then click on the “Next” button (which should now be active) and continue forward with the exam as usual.

If the student has no missing checkboxes but is on question 100, showing missing questions, please have the student either use the review list or the previous button to go off question 100. This should show the 100 of 100 questions answered in the top right progress bar. The student then should submit the exam, and see no unanswered exam questions upon their final submission.

Occasionally there is a slow submission to the final exam submission (ALL 100 questions), and students will report a white screen with a “spinning wheel of death” at the top. If this occurs, please ask the student to attempt to REFRESH​ the page. If that does not work, please verify that we have received all 100 lines of data for the student by calling the exam helpline at 603-727-7002 ext.2 or by emailing exams@aquifer.org. Once verified, ask the student to perform a hard shutdown on their device.

When students finish the exam and actively choose to submit the exam, they will see a white screen that says “close browser”. They should click on that hyperlink. Once they do, they should receive a pop-up that allows them to “QUIT” the Safe Exam Browser safely. If a student chooses CANCEL and not to QUIT the SEB, they will be stuck and have to perform a hard reset of the device. To ease the students anxiety, you should verify the student’s data is all received by calling the helpline at 603-277-2060, before they do this.