Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor, Explained

What is Respondus LockDown Browser?

Respondus LockDown Browser is a custom browser your school or institution requires for certain online exams. It installs on your own computer, opens only to your learning system's login page, and locks the exam environment until you submit. Respondus Monitor is the optional webcam add-on used with it for exams that have no live proctor: it records your session on webcam and flags events for your instructor to review afterward. Everything below is the general process, exactly as Respondus publishes it.

Two layers: the locked browser and the webcam system

Respondus LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor are two separate layers, and people routinely blur them. LockDown Browser is a client application installed on your computer. You get the installer from your institution's own download link, launch it, log in to your learning management system, and navigate to the exam the way you normally would. If you try to open that exam in a regular browser like Chrome or Safari, you get a message telling you LockDown Browser is required instead.

Respondus Monitor is an add-on feature for LockDown Browser, used for exams delivered in non-proctored settings. In the standard Monitor model there is no live human proctor watching you in real time. Instead, your webcam records the whole session, the system adds automated flags to the recording, and your instructor reviews the results afterward. That record-and-review design is the single biggest difference between Monitor and live-proctored systems such as OnVUE or the ETS at-home tests.

Because delivery runs through your school's learning system, the exam itself lives inside the same course page you already use. LockDown Browser simply becomes the only window you are allowed to take it through.

What the browser lockdown restricts

Once the exam has started, you are locked into it. Respondus's own student-experience documentation lists the restriction categories plainly: you are unable to print, copy, go to other web addresses, or access other applications on the computer. Web searches, instant messaging, minimizing the browser, and hundreds of other functions are also prevented for the duration.

The lock has defined edges. It begins when the exam starts and ends when the exam is submitted for grading — after that, you are permitted to exit the browser and your computer returns to its normal state. If you need to leave the exam before submitting it, for an emergency or a connection failure, LockDown Browser requires you to enter a reason for exiting early, and that reason is visible to your instructor in the LockDown Browser dashboard.

Notice what Respondus publishes and what it does not. The company names the categories of things the browser prevents; it does not publish how the browser enforces them internally, and it does not publish a list of specific programs it scans for. Any page that claims to know those internals is guessing. This page stays with the published categories.

What the Monitor check-in verifies

If your exam requires a webcam, you are guided through a short set of screens before the exam begins. The first is a webcam check, where you confirm the camera is working properly. Respondus's audio documentation adds that this pre-exam check includes a step confirming your audio is recording properly, because Monitor captures ambient sound during the exam.

Your instructor can require additional startup steps. Respondus names two directly: showing your identification, and recording a brief video of your examination setting — the room scan candidates usually call the environment check. The proctoring-results documentation also references a Facial Detection Check as part of the startup sequence, because a failure to achieve facial detection there produces its own flag.

Only after this sequence does the exam start. A Recording icon appears at the top right of the screen once the exam begins, and Respondus treats the webcam footage captured between the environment check and the exam start as its own labeled segment in the review timeline. The webcam keeps recording until the exam is submitted.

What gets recorded during the exam

The webcam recording is the core of Monitor. Your session is recorded on video from the startup sequence through submission, and the system is designed to record ambient sound only — it is not built to capture audio responses, and Respondus says Monitor should not be used to record an audio answer to an exam question.

Instructors can also enable a screen recording option on a per-exam basis. When it is enabled, a recording of your screen appears in the proctoring results below the webcam video, and the reviewer can switch which one is the primary playback window. Screen recording only exists for exams that use both LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor, and it is supported on Windows, Mac, and Chromebook — Respondus states there are currently no plans to offer it for iPad.

Unplugging the webcam mid-exam does not make anything invisible. Respondus's own answer to that question: the Comment section for the student will indicate that the webcam was unplugged, and the video will likely show the student unplugging the cable.

How automated flags and Review Priority work

After the exam, Respondus Monitor analyzes the session and attaches events to a review timeline. Flags are events where a problem might exist; milestones are general occurrences like the exam starting or a question being answered. The webcam video is analyzed using facial detection technology, which is how flags such as Missing from Frame and Different person in Frame are generated.

Respondus publishes its flag categories. From facial detection: Missing from Frame, Different person in Frame, Multiple persons in Frame, Low Facial Detection, and Failed Facial Detection Check at startup. From the device and network: an internet interruption, the video frame rate being lowered for connection quality, a webcam being disconnected or connected, an attempt to switch to another screen or application, the video session terminating early, and the student exiting LockDown Browser early — with the reason the student entered. Respondus notes that new flags and milestones are added periodically, so the published list is not comprehensive.

Every session also gets a Review Priority value — Low, Medium, or High — which ranks which sessions most warrant the instructor's attention. It is derived from three data sources: the webcam video, the computing device and network used for the assessment, and the student's interaction with the assessment itself.

Two of Respondus's own statements matter more than any flag name. First: flags aren't cheating — flags and Review Priority do not determine whether a student cheated; they identify suspicious activities, anomalies, or data of too low a quality to analyze, and a human reviews them. Second: there are more false positives than true positives, especially for facial-detection flags. Baseball caps, backlighting, low lighting, hands on the face, and certain eyeglasses all drag down facial detection, and a student flagged as missing is often simply sitting in bad light.

What happens if your internet drops

Respondus checks your connection before the exam even starts. The Monitor startup sequence includes a network quality check; if the connection to Respondus's servers is poor, you can click try again, which lowers the frame rate at which your video is captured. If the network is simply too poor, you have to leave the browser and establish a better connection before proceeding — Respondus states there is no workaround at that point.

For brief disconnections mid-exam, Monitor attempts to re-establish the connection every 5 seconds. If it reconnects, the video for that gap is missing in the review, and the instructor sees an automated note in the Comments section with a thumbnail marking where the break occurred. Students are usually unaware a brief interruption even happened, because the webcam reconnects on its own once the internet returns.

An extended loss is different. If the connection is lost for an extended period, you cannot continue with the exam; you restore your connection, restart LockDown Browser, and attempt the exam again.

Respondus's published preparation advice is practical: plug in an Ethernet cable if you can, sit close to the router on Wi-Fi, restart your computer, shut down every application you do not need, and keep other devices off the network. One more published caution: some VPN utilities can interfere with the webcam on Monitor-required exams, so disable any active VPN connection before starting, or switch to a secure network instead of a public one.

The published computer requirements

LockDown Browser is a client application installed on the local computer, and Respondus publishes exactly what that computer must be. Windows 11 or 10 is supported, including ARM 64-bit processors using x86 emulation — but Windows 10 or 11 in S mode is not compatible, Windows SE is currently not compatible, and LockDown Browser is not available through the Windows App Store. On Mac, the supported range is macOS 10.15 to 14.0 and later.

Chromebooks are supported on at least the ChromeOS version from Google's Long Term Support channel, with the Stable channel recommended. An iPad works only where the institution has a compatible learning-system integration, and the iPad app is not compatible with Sakai.

Memory and disk requirements are modest but specific: 2 GB of RAM and 200 MB of free disk space as the base, with a minimum of 4 GB of available RAM when the exam also uses a webcam. Respondus adds that LockDown Browser and Monitor may keep running on operating systems that have reached end-of-life, but students may encounter unexpected results there.

If the Sitting Itself Is the Problem

Knowing the published rules is one thing; sitting a locked-down, fully recorded exam is another. Exam Assist exists for exactly that gap — we handle online exam sittings end to end, and the service fee is due only after your agreed result posts. Send your exam, your window, and your deadline, and you will get an honest feasibility answer first.

If you want the broader picture first, our guides to how online proctoring works and the comparison of online proctoring software explain how the Respondus model differs from live-proctored systems, and our overviews of OnVUE, the ETS Secure Browser, and Duolingo English Test security cover the other major approaches.