Schoolyear AVD

Introduction

For digital exams, educational institutions require students to take the exam in a controlled environment. Students should not be able to interact with their local machine or files. This requires the use of the Safe Exam Workspace. This endpoint security solution locks the physical machine the student is using during the exam to prevent access to unauthorized content.

Within the Safe Exam Workspace environment, the student connects to an Azure Virtual Desktop. The exam is conducted in this virtual environment, with controlled access to websites, files, and applications.

Schoolyear AVD is an add-on to the Safe Exam Workspace product that enables institutions to integrate their own Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) infrastructure for use during exams. This integration allows educators to automatically create virtual environments suitable for high-stakes exams, without the day-to-day involvement of an IT department.

Image illustrating how the Safe Exam Workspace relates to the local device and the VM running in Azure.

How to use the Schoolyear AVD add-on once configured?

This documentation provides comprehensive guidance on setting up and configuring the AVD add-on. Once everything is configured, education teams can plan exams themselves using the Schoolyear settings widget. The following article provides step-by-step guidance: How to plan an exam with Desktop Applications.

Once the exam is planned, the AVD add-on will automatically create the virtual desktop for the students. Students will follow the instructions provided by the education team to launch the Safe Exam Workspace. After launching, they will be automatically directed to the Azure Virtual Desktop login page. These instructions can be shared with students: Using Applications during an exam (Azure Virtual Desktop).

Image illustrating how an exam is planned and how students launch it.