How do you use workspace authentication?

This article explains how workspace authentication works and answers the following questions:

• What is workspace authentication?
• When do you use workspace authentication?
• How do you enable workspace authentication?
• What does workspace authentication look like during the exam?

What is workspace authentication?

For every Schoolyear exam, a unique workspace is created for a student. To correctly link submissions to a student, Schoolyear needs to know which student belongs to which workspace. Without workspace authentication, this link is established in two ways, both of which can go wrong:

• For an integrated exam, the integration sends the student data. Schoolyear has no control over exactly what data is sent, which means this data can differ between submissions.
• For an exam code, the student enters their own first name, last name, and student number. This creates the risk of typos or incorrect input.

Differences in this data cause the same student to be recognized as a "new" student multiple times, meaning their submissions won't be linked together. Workspace authentication solves this by linking every workspace to one authenticated student, independent of what the exam application or the student enters.

When do you use workspace authentication?

You generally want to enforce authentication via Schoolyear for all exams. There are only a few situations where you might not want this:

• You don't use SSO: if this is the case, you might not want to use this feature.
• You have an exam with students who don't yet have SSO: for example, admissions exams where students don't yet have an institutional account.

How do you enable workspace authentication?

To require workspace authentication for an exam, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the admin console of your Schoolyear environment and click on organization settings.
2. Under workspace authentication, check Require workspace authentication. This makes workspace authentication mandatory for every newly created exam.
3. (Optional): If you want this setting to be overridable per exam, check this option. This allows you to disable the workspace authentication requirement for a specific exam via that exam's settings widget, under advanced settings.

workspace authentication via an integrated exam

An integrated exam is an exam created by means of an API key.

The exam is started via the test application / LMS and students go through the usual Schoolyear onboarding. Just before the Schoolyear application is launched, the student is asked to authenticate. This will be done via Single Sign-On (SSO)* and the student must enter their own email address.

Because the student is often already logged in to the test application / LMS with SSO, the student probably does not need to log in again and the authentication can be reused. It is also possible for integrated applications to send the student's email address in advance so that this step can be skipped as well.

* If you do not use SSO but use the email allowlist, the student will use a temporary link sent by email.

workspace authentication via a standalone exam

A standalone exam is a exam created in the Schoolyear dashboard.

The exam is started via the exam code shared with the student. Just before the Schoolyear application is launched, the student is asked to authenticate. This will be done via Single Sign-On (SSO)* and the student must enter their own email address. It is not necessary for the student to register themselves with a name and student number as this information is shared via SSO.

Once authentication is successful, the student can start the Schoolyear environment and begin the exam.
 

 

* If you do not use SSO but use the email allowlist, the student will use a temporary link sent by email.