To share an online quiz with students, publish it and give the class its link or join code: on the board for a quiz in the room, in a message for a quiz at home. A student needs a browser and a name, and rarely an account.
Most of what goes wrong does so in the first five minutes and has little to do with the questions: a code misread, a laptop off the Wi-Fi, two pupils typing one name. This guide takes each in turn, and marks what rests on research or public guidance and what is our working rule.
EdProcto, which publishes this guide, shares a quiz from one button: "Publish & share" puts it live under a six-character code and a link, and no student signs in to anything. Its page for teachers sets out the whole path.
How do you share an online quiz with students?
Publish the quiz, hand out its link or code, watch the class in, and close it when the last student has handed in. In EdProcto that is six steps.
- Sit it yourself. Click "Preview as student" and answer every question, on a phone if students will use phones.
- Decide what a student types. A name always; an email address only while "An account is needed to take it" is on.
- Publish. Click "Publish & share". The builder shows the code and the link, with "Copy the link".
- Give it out. In the room, write the link on the board. For home, send it through the channel your school already uses.
- Watch the class in. The results page lists who is in the quiz now and how far each has got.
- Close it. Click "Close the quiz" once everyone has handed in. A closed quiz takes no new attempt, and an attempt still open at that moment can no longer be handed in.
A quiz is opened and closed by hand, or by itself with "Open only between two times", "Opens" and "Closes".
Should students need an account to take a quiz?
No, for most class quizzes: a full name says whose attempt it is, and every further field is one more thing to forget, mistype or protect.
The friction is greatest for younger pupils. Choong et al. (2019) surveyed 189 pupils in grades 3 to 8 at two schools in the United States, who already held two passwords for school on average and three or four for home. A quiz with its own sign-in adds one; that inference is ours.
Public guidance leans the same way. In England, the Department for Education (2026b) tells schools buying educational technology to collect no more personal data than they need and to have the supplier justify each category; its example is a maths practice tool that needs only a pupil's name, class and login. The UK data regulator's Children's code asks online services to collect only the minimum needed for the part of a service a child is actively using (Information Commissioner's Office, n.d.). Neither forbids an email address. Each asks for a reason, and your school's data protection lead judges it.
What EdProcto asks a student for
The start screen asks for "Your name" and, while "An account is needed to take it" is on, "Your email" too. The switch starts on in a new quiz and off in one made from a kit. Nothing is signed in to: the address is typed, no password is set and nothing verifies it. Switch it off when a name is enough.
Telling one student from another when names are typed
EdProcto counts a student by the email address when one is asked for and by the typed name otherwise, ignoring capitals. Three things follow.
- Two pupils who type the same name are one student. With "Whole-quiz retakes" at "None", the second to begin after the first has handed in is told every attempt has been used.
- One pupil who types two spellings is two students, and each takes a place against the plan's limit.
- Nothing proves who typed it unless "A photo at the start" and "An ID card at the start" are on: then the student is photographed with the card before the first question.
So the board carries the rule: first name and surname, as on the register. Where two pupils share both, keep the email address as the tiebreaker.
Join code, link or QR code: which should you give out?
Give a link wherever students can tap it and a code wherever they must type; a QR code helps only where cameras are allowed.
| Way in | Best for | Where it fails | In EdProcto |
|---|---|---|---|
| Code read from the board | A class in the room on laptops | Look-alike characters; typing into the search box | Six characters, the last part of the link |
| Link in a message | A quiz at home | Opens for anyone it is forwarded to | "Copy the link" in the builder |
| QR code on the board | Phones and tablets with a camera | Laptops; rooms where phones are banned | Not drawn for you: make one from the link |
The code
EdProcto's code is six letters and digits in two groups of three, such as K5M-4QX. It leaves out O, 0, I and 1, and capitals and the hyphen do not matter. S and 5, Z and 2, and B and 8 are all in the set, so write it large and say it aloud. There is no separate box for a code: it ends the link, so the board carries the whole address.
The link
Anyone holding the link can begin while the quiz is live, unless you close the door: a "Password", "Invited addresses only", or a "One-time link for each student", a link of their own for each invited address. "Most students" turns a new student away once that many have begun.
The QR code
Make it from the link with any tool you trust, and print the address under it. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre judges fraud by QR code small beside other kinds, finds most of it in open spaces such as car parks, and recommends the phone's built-in scanner over a downloaded app (Chismon, 2024).
Can students take a quiz on their phones?
Yes, when answers are tapped and the reading is short; less well for long passages or typed paragraphs, and not in a room where phones are banned.
What the research found
The studies are of job applicants, not pupils. Arthur et al. (2014) compared 3,575,207 applicants on an unsupervised online assessment: the 1.93% on phones and other handhelds scored about the same on a personality measure and substantially lower on a test of general mental ability.
Later studies gave divergent results, and Brown et al. (2023) showed why field data mislead. Among 76,948 applicants, phone users scored 0.58 of a standard deviation lower, but they also differed in education and in the jobs applied for; with those balanced the gap fell to 0.25, or to 0.10 by a second method.
For pupils the nearest evidence is on tablets: Davis et al. (2017) found no statistically significant difference between tablets and computers for high-school students in three subjects. We found no study that put pupils at random on phones or computers for a class quiz.
Question shapes on a small screen
Palin et al. (2019) timed 37,370 volunteers typing on phones at 36.2 words a minute on average, which the authors put at about 70% of full-keyboard speed.
Our working rule, not their finding: on phones prefer multiple choice, true or false and other tapped shapes, keep a passage to one screen, and allow more time for typed answers.
Phones in the room
In England, statutory guidance that schools were asked to follow from 1 September 2026 expects them to prohibit phones throughout the school day, lessons included, and keeps phones out of schemes for pupils' own laptops and tablets (Department for Education, 2026a). It does not cover 16 to 19 colleges. Where such a rule holds, a phone quiz is a quiz for home.
Shared devices
A browser remembers one attempt at each quiz. When two pupils share a tablet, the first hands in and closes the tab before the second opens the link; otherwise the second lands in the first pupil's attempt. Afterwards "See your result" on that device opens the last result handed in there, and once the quiz is closed the link opens straight on it.
What should a student do when the connection drops?
Keep the page open, or open the same link again on the same device, and carry on. EdProcto saves answers on the server as they are given, and its start screen says: "Your answers are saved as you go. If your connection drops, open the same link in this browser and you continue where you were."
- Same device, same browser. Where the quiz asks for an email address and limits retakes, a start on another phone is refused until you press "Let back in" beside that student under "In the quiz now"; the same attempt then opens there, with its answers and its clock. Where only a name is asked, or retakes have no limit, another phone begins a new attempt and the unfinished one stays in the record.
- The clock keeps running. Time is counted from the moment the attempt began, unless "Allow pausing" is on: then the student may pause, the questions are hidden, and the clock waits for up to the "Minutes of pausing in all".
- The page stays open. An answer given offline is sent again every few seconds and the moment the connection returns; until then the bar reads "Not saved yet: trying again".
When 447 students at one UK medical school sat end-of-year exams remotely in 2020, ten (2.2%) contacted staff about a technical problem, and ten of 119 surveyed (8.4%) reported Wi-Fi trouble (Jaap et al., 2021). Their software did not need a continuous connection, so the figures are a rough guide: one or two pupils in a class of 28.
How do you start a class quiz in five minutes?
Put the way in on the board before anyone sits down, say one sentence about names, and deal with stragglers one at a time while the rest work. This is our working rule, not a research finding.
A worked example: one class of 28
Ten multiple-choice questions, eight minutes, 24 school laptops, so four pupils go second. "An account is needed to take it" is off, and the quiz is on the Free plan.
The words on the board:
- Cells quiz. Type this into the address bar, not the search box: (the quiz's link, which ends /q/K5M-4QX)
- That is K, five, M, then four, Q, X.
- Name: first name and surname, as on the register.
- Lost the connection? Same laptop, same link. Do not start again.
- Finished? Hand in and close the tab.
The timed run:
- 0:00. Laptops open. The teacher reads the board aloud once.
- 1:00. The first start screens are up and names are going in.
- 2:00. Twenty pupils are on question 1; the teacher goes to the raised hands, and by 4:00 all 24 laptops are in.
- 5:00. The first hand-ins arrive and the four waiting pupils take the free laptops.
Three things went wrong.
- A misread code. One pupil typed S for 5 and met "No quiz has that code". The teacher pointed to the board's second line.
- A name already used. One of the last four typed only a first name, the same one a classmate had handed in under, and was told every attempt had been used. He typed both names and was in.
- A dropped connection. A laptop lost the Wi-Fi at question 6 and its pupil closed the tab to start again on a neighbour's machine. The teacher sent her back: once online, the same link reopened at question 6 with five answers kept and the clock a minute further on.
The teacher clicked "Close the quiz" when the results page showed nobody still inside.
How do you run a quiz at home?
Publish it when you set the work, say when it closes, and close it yourself at that time.
- The window. We keep it to an evening or two: a working rule. If answers show at hand-in, the first to finish can pass them on, so hold them back until you close (the settings guide goes through the evidence). Any time limit runs for each student from the moment they begin.
- Lateness. Once you close, a student who has not begun meets "This quiz is not open", and one who is midway cannot hand in. Close a few minutes late, when nobody is still inside. If someone is caught, publish again: the same link on the same device picks the attempt up, and if its time has run out it is normally handed in as it stands.
- The absent pupil. "Publish & share" again reopens the same link. With "Whole-quiz retakes" at "None", nobody who has handed in can start again under the same name.
- Conditions. In the survey above, 18.5% had trouble finding a quiet space and 12.6% used a shared or borrowed device (Jaap et al., 2021), so keep the stakes low. Our guide to homework quizzes that mark themselves covers what to set.
Why share a quiz with EdProcto?
EdProcto is the best tool for getting a quiz to a class and back, because the way in is one link and a name: no student account, nothing to install, no password to reset at minute two. The dropped connection in the example cost a minute and no answers, because answers are saved on the server as given and the same link continues the attempt.
The answer key never reaches a student's device and the marks are made on the server (why it is built this way). A Study quiz, shared with "Share with a code", checks each answer as it is given, and a Quiz night puts the code on the host's screen, large enough for a room (hosting a quiz night).
Free carries thirty students a quiz, Tutor 100 and Educator 500; pricing has the figures. No setting makes cheating impossible, a logged event is a record to read and not proof, and every score is yours to release (integrity).
Quick questions
Can students take an online quiz without accounts?
Yes. In EdProcto a student opens the link and types a name; switch off "An account is needed to take it" and no email address is asked for.
How does a quiz with a join code work?
Publishing gives the quiz a short code; students open the link that ends in it and begin. In EdProcto the code is six characters and the link opens on any device.
What happens if a student's internet drops during a quiz?
The answers already given are saved. The student opens the same link on the same device and continues; the clock does not stop.
How many students can take one quiz?
Thirty on EdProcto's Free plan, 100 on Tutor and 500 on Educator; pricing lists the plans.
References
- Arthur, W., Jr., Doverspike, D., Muñoz, G. J., Taylor, J. E., & Carr, A. E. (2014). The use of mobile devices in high-stakes remotely delivered assessments and testing. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 22(2), 113–123. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12062
- Brown, M. I., Grossenbacher, M. A., & Warman, Z. (2023). Self-selection as an explanation for general mental ability test score differences between mobile and nonmobile devices in observational studies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 108(7), 1190–1206. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001067
- Chismon, D. (2024, February 8). QR codes - what's the real risk? National Cyber Security Centre. https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/qr-codes-whats-real-risk
- Choong, Y.-Y., Theofanos, M. F., Renaud, K., & Prior, S. (2019). "Passwords protect my stuff"—a study of children's password practices. Journal of Cybersecurity, 5(1), Article tyz015. https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyz015
- Davis, L. L., Kong, X., McBride, Y., & Morrison, K. M. (2017). Device comparability of tablets and computers for assessment purposes. Applied Measurement in Education, 30(1), 16–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/08957347.2016.1243538
- Department for Education. (2026a, June 29). Mobile phones in schools. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mobile-phones-in-schools/mobile-phones-in-schools
- Department for Education. (2026b, July 9). Procuring educational technology (EdTech). In Data protection in schools. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/data-protection-in-schools/procuring-educational-technology-edtech
- Information Commissioner's Office. (n.d.). 8. Data minimisation. In Age appropriate design: A code of practice for online services. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/childrens-information/childrens-code-guidance-and-resources/age-appropriate-design-a-code-of-practice-for-online-services/8-data-minimisation/
- Jaap, A., Dewar, A., Duncan, C., Fairhurst, K., Hope, D., & Kluth, D. (2021). Effect of remote online exam delivery on student experience and performance in applied knowledge tests. BMC Medical Education, 21, Article 86. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02521-1
- Palin, K., Feit, A. M., Kim, S., Kristensson, P. O., & Oulasvirta, A. (2019). How do people type on mobile devices? Observations from a study with 37,000 volunteers. In Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (pp. 1–12). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3338286.3340120