Does Canvas Track Tab Switching or Split Screen? What Is Logged

Yes, Canvas records when you leave a quiz page. In Classic Quizzes the quiz log adds a timestamped "Stopped viewing the Canvas quiz-taking page" entry whenever the quiz window loses focus, and "Resumed" when it gets focus back; New Quizzes has logged stopping and resuming since October 2024. Canvas does not record which tab or app you went to, and on its own it cannot see a split screen or a second monitor unless you click into the other window. This article explains exactly what triggers the entry, where its limits are, and what changes when a proctoring tool is added.

Last verified: October 12, 2026 against the official documentation linked below.

What Canvas logs when you switch tabs

Instructure's guide to the Classic Quizzes log lists four statuses an instructor sees in a student's action log. Two of them are about leaving the page:

• Stopped viewing the Canvas quiz-taking page: displayed "when a student navigates away from the quiz (closes the browser tab, opens a new browser tab, or navigates to a different program)".
• Resumed: displayed "when the student has returned to the quiz".

Each entry has a timestamp, so the instructor sees both how many times the page lost focus and how long each absence lasted. The other two statuses, "Viewed (and possibly read) a question" and "Answered a question", sit in the same timeline, which is what makes the log readable: an instructor can see, for example, that question 9 was answered twelve seconds after a ninety-second absence.

For the rest of what the log and the Moderate page show (answers, timing, IP address, computer details), see our full guide to what professors see in the Canvas quiz log.

How the "Stopped viewing" event actually works

Canvas is open source, so there is no need to guess. The Classic Quizzes log is built by a small set of "event trackers" in the canvas-lms repository. The one behind "Stopped viewing" is page_blurred.js, and the one behind "Resumed" is page_focused.js. Reading them gives three precise facts:

1. It listens to the window's blur event. In browser terms, a window "blurs" when it loses keyboard focus (see MDN: Window blur event). Switching tabs, switching to another application, minimizing, or clicking into another browser window all move focus away from the quiz window.
2. Focus moving into an embedded frame is ignored. The code checks whether the newly focused element is an IFRAME and, if so, does not log anything. That is why clicking into an embedded video or a rich-text editor inside the quiz page does not create a "Stopped viewing" entry.
3. Entries are throttled to one per 5 seconds. The tracker's default frequency is 5,000 ms, so a burst of focus changes within a few seconds shows up as a single entry rather than many.

Notice what Canvas is not using: the visibilitychange event, which tells a page whether it is visible on screen. Canvas tracks focus, not visibility. That single design choice explains almost every "does Canvas detect X?" question below.

What a log with tab switches looks like

To make the entries concrete, here is an illustrative excerpt in the format Instructure describes for Classic Quizzes. The times and question numbers are invented for the example; the wording of the statuses is Canvas's own.

From these rows an instructor can read that the quiz page lost focus for about two minutes and nineteen seconds, and that question 2 was answered thirteen seconds after the student came back. Clicking the question number in the log shows each answer submitted for it. What the instructor cannot read from it is the reason: an app notification, a phone call taken on the computer, or a search all produce the same two rows. That is why the log is usually read alongside other information rather than on its own.

Split screen, second monitor, phone: what the event can and cannot see

Because the log is driven by focus, the question to ask is always "did keyboard focus leave the quiz window?", not "was something else on screen?". Here is how common setups play out with Canvas alone, without a proctoring tool:

So the honest answer to "can Canvas detect split screen?" is: Canvas cannot see your screen layout, but the moment you interact with the other half of the screen, the focus change is logged. Instructors know this too, which is why courses that want to rule out other windows use a proctoring tool rather than the log. More on that below.

Two other limits are worth stating plainly. The log does not record the destination of a focus change: it cannot say whether you opened a search engine, a calculator or a chat app. And it does not record anything after the attempt is submitted. Everything else you do in the course (opening files, pages, modules) is in the separate Access Report, described in our quiz log guide.

Classic Quizzes vs New Quizzes

Classic Quizzes has logged focus changes for years through the Quiz Log Auditing feature, which Instructure describes as a course-level feature option. If it is enabled, every attempt has a log; logs are kept for six months.

New Quizzes runs as a separate tool inside Canvas and has its own log on the Moderate page, where Instructure says the log "includes moments of stopping and resuming the quiz". Older forum posts claim New Quizzes does not log tab changes; that was true until an October 2024 update. Newcastle University's learning technology team summed it up as: instructors "can now track when students leave the New Quiz page, whether they navigate to another Canvas page or switch browsers, and when they return to resume the quiz" (Canvas October 2024 updates). New Quizzes' code is not public, so we cannot confirm whether it uses focus, visibility or both; treat it as at least as sensitive as Classic.

Not sure which one your course uses? Our Classic vs New Quizzes guide shows how to tell them apart.

Can students tell whether logging is on?

No. Nothing on the student side of a Canvas quiz indicates whether Quiz Log Auditing is enabled or whether anyone will open the log. The safe assumption is that every graded quiz is logged. What you can see is whether the quiz requires a lockdown browser or a proctoring extension, because you will be asked to launch or install it before the quiz opens.

What changes with a proctoring tool

The focus log is the most Canvas does by itself. Schools that need a closed environment add a proctoring product, and those work very differently:

• Respondus LockDown Browser is, in Respondus's words, "a custom browser that locks down the testing environment". Students "are unable to copy, print, access other applications, or visit other websites during an online exam", and it prevents access to screen-sharing, virtual machines and remote desktops (Respondus LockDown Browser). Switching tabs is not something to log here; it is simply not possible.
• Proctorio runs as a Chrome extension with lock-down options. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's guidance for instructors says: "If you intend to prevent students from navigating to any other window or browser tab, then enable Force Full Screen", and recommends the Disable Extensions option on every Proctorio quiz (UTC Proctorio best practices).
• Honorlock is also a Chrome extension. Its test-taker privacy statement says it can log "the websites you attempt to visit through Chrome while you are taking the exam" and, if your school enables it, record your webcam and capture your desktop activity.

In other words, the gaps in the table above (a second monitor, content only visible in split screen) are exactly what proctoring tools are designed to close, with screen recording, single-screen checks and webcam review. Our articles on whether Canvas detects Chrome extensions and whether professors can see your extensions cover what each of these tools can observe.

How instructors read focus entries

Instructure's own guidance is that quiz logs are designed to investigate problems a student had during a quiz and to gain insight into questions, and that they are not intended to validate academic integrity; it recommends instructors work with their institution's academic-integrity office for any concern. That is consistent with how the event works: a blur entry is ambiguous. A Wi-Fi pop-up, a calendar reminder or a battery warning all look identical to a deliberate switch.

In practice, what draws attention is a pattern rather than a single entry: repeated, long absences immediately followed by correct answers on hard questions, combined with other signals such as completion time far outside the class range or answers matching another submission. A couple of short entries in a forty-minute quiz is common.

Practical advice for graded quizzes

• Check the rules first. Open-book, open-notes, calculator allowed, AI tools allowed or not: these are set by your instructor and your institution's academic-integrity policy, and they differ between homework quizzes and exams.
• If a resource is allowed, ask how to use it. If your instructor allows a calculator app or a formula sheet in another window, a short message before the quiz makes any "Stopped viewing" entries easy to explain.
• Turn off notifications. Do Not Disturb or Focus mode prevents pop-ups from stealing focus and adding entries you did not intend.
• If you get disconnected, report it immediately. The log will show the gap; a quick email with a screenshot helps your instructor reopen the attempt.
• Practice outside graded attempts. Ungraded practice quizzes are the place to look things up and learn. See our guide on studying with AI tools.

Sources

• Instructure: How do I view a quiz log for a student?
• Instructure: How do I use the Moderate page in New Quizzes?
• canvas-lms source: page_blurred.js and page_focused.js
• MDN: Window blur event and Document visibilitychange event
• Newcastle University: Canvas October 2024 updates
• Respondus: LockDown Browser
• Honorlock: Test taker privacy statement
• University of Tennessee at Chattanooga: Proctorio best practices

FAQ

Does Canvas know if you switch tabs during a quiz?

Yes, when quiz logging is on. The quiz window loses focus and Canvas records "Stopped viewing the Canvas quiz-taking page" with a timestamp, then "Resumed" when you come back. It does not record which tab you opened.

Can Canvas detect split screen?

Canvas cannot see your screen layout. It records focus changes, so clicking or typing in the other window is logged, while content that is only visible is not. Proctoring tools such as Proctorio (Force Full Screen) or Respondus LockDown Browser are what courses use to restrict other windows.

Can Canvas detect a second monitor?

Not by itself. Clicking a window on the second monitor is logged like any other switch. Proctoring tools are a different matter: they can force full screen, record the desktop and use the webcam, and many courses that use them also forbid extra displays in their exam rules.

Does New Quizzes track tab switching?

Yes. Since October 2024 the New Quizzes attempt log on the Moderate page shows when a student stopped viewing the quiz page and when they resumed.

Will one accidental tab switch flag my quiz?

Canvas does not flag or score entries; it simply lists them. An instructor reading the log sees each entry and its duration. If something pulled you away by accident, mentioning it to your instructor is the simplest way to avoid questions later.

Does Canvas record what I copy or paste?

The Classic Quizzes log trackers in the Canvas source code cover session start, question viewed, page blurred/focused and question flagged; there is no clipboard tracker. Lockdown tools are different: Respondus LockDown Browser blocks copying and pasting entirely.