Mock teacher-facing quiz log:
What an instructor actually looks at
From talking to professors, the three things that get flagged are not "any tab switch" — it's the pattern of switches:
- How many — 1-2 is usually noise. 5+ is a pattern.
- How long each — under 3 seconds reads like a notification check. Over 30 seconds reads like a lookup.
- When they happen — switches clustered around hard questions look very different from switches scattered evenly.
Your quiz score matters too: a clean log on a 95% quiz tells one story; multiple switches on a 95% quiz where the student previously averaged 70% tells a different story.
What you can't simulate from this
The log generator doesn't know about multi-attempt patterns (Canvas shows time-per-attempt comparisons), IP changes across the attempt (visible in New Quizzes with the right permission), or the statistical anomaly detection some integrity offices run across cohorts (e.g., "two students with the same exact answer sequence including identical wrong answers"). Those are separate forensic layers, not in the quiz log itself.
The only zero-risk log is the one without blur events
Privacy Guard intercepts the page_blurred/page_focused events at the JavaScript layer. Your log shows the same entries as a student who never tabbed away — because, from Canvas's side, you didn't.
FAQ
- How many tab switches is too many?
- No fixed threshold. 1-2 brief switches under 5 seconds is usually ignored. 3+ switches over 10 seconds each tends to raise eyebrows. 5+ with 30+ seconds each is the pattern that triggers academic-integrity review at most institutions.
- What pattern is least suspicious?
- Zero switches is ideal. After that: very brief (under 3s), spaced apart, not clustered around hard questions, consistent with your normal pacing.
- Does Canvas log "Stopped viewing" if my screen just dims (laptop sleep)?
- Mostly yes — OS-level lock screens fire the same visibilitychange / blur events. The blur entry appears in the log when your screen turns off, and a focus entry when you unlock.
- What if my instructor never looks at the quiz log?
- Most don't, day-to-day. They look when a grade looks anomalous or when something else flagged you (proctor video, classmate report). The log is the receipt that gets pulled out at the integrity hearing.