Honorlock

Our University has used Honorlock for over a year and have been very pleased with the software and the support for students and faculty. The service is designed to deter and detect cheating through the LMS quizzes feature. Faculty have the ability to enable certain Honorlock settings for quizzes and students are encouraged to take the practice quiz to ensure their system is working before attempting a grading assessment. Like any software or third-party tool, both faculty and students at our University have had issues, but Honorlock’s support team is always helpful and willing to help resolve issues as quickly as they can.

There is no question that online testing security has been a concern for most faculty for quite some time. How do faculty balance the flexibility and convenience of the online environment with the integrity of academic rigor? Yes, there are many services out there that claim to address this issue but from past experience, they either don’t fully secure the testing process or the cost is beyond reach for many universities.

Honorock has helped our university to solve both of these issues. Our online faculty who have used the service have been well pleased with the service Honorlock provides. All have stated they have much more confidence in the testing environment and the reassurance of knowing that the student who is registered for the course is in fact the one completing the exams.

Once students have gone through the practice test, the process is very simple and issues during the exam have been minimal for students. Honorlock establishes a testing environment much like a testing lab but with the convenience of a 27/7 – 365 day testing window. Our students understand the need to show their id and scan the testing environment prior to beginning a test as this was normal procedure for our on-campus testing labs prior to securing Honorlock’s services.

Should faculty or students ever experience any issues, the technical support has been quick to respond.

Overall, our University is very pleased with the service Honorlock has offered.

Our university uses Honorlock for our distance education programs quite successfully. Students who are concerned with privacy issues must realize that in face-to-face testing or testing in a proctored environment with a “real” person, involves the same steps for identity verification. When a student tests at our testing center, we ask for a non-expired ID, have the student lock up their phone, smartwatch, remove hats, empty pockets. etc. We perform visual walk-throughs (much like the room scan that is required) and review the browser history after the student logs off the exam. With Honorlock, the extension can be removed after each testing session if students have a concern about this. Many social media platforms track student information, which Honorlock does not. Honorlock uses facial detection, not facial recognition, which is very different. There are issues with detecting faces in lower lighting settings, which our cameras at our testing center experience as well. In the end, what Honorlock or in-person testing hope to accomplish is to provide some reassurance to the instructor that the test was taken by all students and in as similar environments as possible in order to promote a fair testing experience. We, as testing professionals, understand the concern by students, but have done our due diligence in vetting Honorlock as we have used online testing for years and very successfully.

It really annoys me that you are required to have windows 10 for this extension. So if you have an older laptop you can’t do your class work. No matter how little I move my head my test pauses and makes me go through all the starting steps again. I find it a huge invasion of privacy. Before you start anything you have to record the room you are in and share your screen with them. If it just made sure I didn’t open any tabs then it would be fine, but failing me if I don’t show you the inside of my house? Yeah no.

Just took an honor lock test and got a 70. My test kept pausing because I had to slightly reposition my head to be comfortable and write.My neck was cramping because I had to angle the camera down. I also had to keep doing the whole scans over and over again. First it was a face scan, then I had to show my ID and then I had to do a room scan. Teachers need to understand that not everyone can take tests at home. It took me three hours to help someone with this software. People need to understand that not everyone can take a test without background noise. Don’t expect me to “act like an adult” when I am being forced to take classes online and professors are forcing people who didn’t want to take remote classes in the first place to download this app which invades my privacy. I understand they don’t want me to cheat but, this invades my privacy. I would rather take tests in person. Schools can easily have students take tests in person while social distancing and wearing masks. I would rather take tests in person or die from the covid 19 than use this software. F** disgusting