Honorlock Software Review

With online learning becoming mainstream of late, both educational institutions and their students have to adjust to new academic norms. Today, there are several applications that help institutions impart knowledge to students over the internet. Such applications have made education more accessible and allowed students to learn from anywhere.

However, while technology has made online education easier, online evaluations still need improvement at many institutions. Though many students are now taking their tests online, the integrity and authenticity of such examinations are always under question. This is primarily due to three reasons:

1. Traditional online proctoring tools are not advanced enough to prevent students from using prohibited resources during tests.
2. It’s quick and easy for students to find and share test questions and answers on the internet. 
3. Students have access to multiple tools that can help them cheat in online examinations. Unfortunately, such devices can be hard to detect, even for seasoned proctors. 

Conducting tests online is a massive effort for institutions as well. Institutions have to partner with 3rd party testing sites, prepare unique questions, and schedule them carefully. Moreover, to ensure that only students of the institution can take the test, they need to collect biometric information or monitor the network used by students, which raises serious data safety concerns.

The above problems have distressed institutions and students and reduced the feasibility of online examinations. Thankfully, advanced proctoring solutions, like Honorlock, take these issues head-on and solve them through technological innovations. This review will focus on Honorlock’s state-of-the-art proctoring software and services that help institutions scale online testing while still protecting academic integrity.

Honorlock uses artificial intelligence to monitor exam sessions for potential academic dishonesty and alerts a live proctor to join the student’s session if it detects any issues. This blend of AI and human review delivers a powerful solution to protect online exams while making the proctoring experience simple, easy, and supportive.

Through this review, we will cover the following points:

1. Introduction to Honorlock
2. Key Features of Honorlock
3. Our final verdict

So let’s get started, shall we?

Introduction To Honorlock

Honorlock is a blended AI and human proctoring tool that helps institutions conduct live examinations and prevent students from using unfair means. It protects the privacy, security, and integrity of tests through an advanced set of tools and ensures equity in the testing process while minimizing the workload of institutions.

From the data collection and security technologies to employee training and testing, Honorlock prioritizes data security and privacy from start to finish. Further, it adheres to FERPA guidelines to ensure that students’ personally identifiable information is safeguarded at all times.

Honorlock offers a variety  of proctoring options to ensure that students can not use or access unauthorized exam content and resources. It primarily works as a browser extension that’s easy for students to install and uninstall after the exam. This browser-based approach means minimal operating requirements to ensure that students can take tests with minimal hardware and bandwidth.

With Honorlock, you can bid farewell to the hassles of test scheduling. Once a test is created or stored on the platform, it can be taken by students at any given time (24x7x365). Honorlock also offers a ‘Search & Destroy’ feature that differentiates it from other proctoring solutions. This feature scours the internet and identifies leaked test questions. This allows instructors to change their test questions and submit content takedown requests to the website.

Honorlock provides a Live Pop-in™ feature where the AI alerts live proctors if it detects potential dishonesty. The proctor can review the situation and then decide to intervene. This provides a much less invasive test experience for students because they aren’t constantly being watched, and the proctor doesn’t have to intervene if the behavior isn’t problematic.

If an Honorlock proctor must intervene, they communicate with the student via a chat tool. During this time, the proctor is focused on one student – a 1:1 student to proctor ratio.  The Honorlock team monitors tests, records them and sends reports to faculty. Its US-based proctors collaborate with institutions directly after the exam and help redirect student behavior skillfully during the exam.

Honorlock can detect if a student uses voice-based assistance like, “Ok, Google” or “Hey Siri.” The AI then alerts a live proctor who can review the situation before deciding to intervene. 

In addition to the above features, Honorlock offers a dedicated customer success team to help each institution implement it successfully and customize it further to suit their needs. Their team provides a live chat feature, where both students and faculties can ask them questions. Support is also available via email, and faculty have a high-priority phone support option. 

An added benefit of Honorlock is that students can get support during tests without having to leave the LMS exam window. Furthermore, Honorlock’s AI automatically records examinations, identifies flags, and reports them to the institution, saving considerable time for instructors. 

Key Features of Honorlock

1. Multiple Proctoring Options:

With Honorlock, you can choose the type of proctoring that best suits your institution. You can choose its ‘AI Proctoring’ option which automatically flags suspicious activity during tests. However, Honorlock recommends the best experience is with their ‘AI & Live Proctor Pop-In’ option, where a team of US-based proctors oversee tests and can take actions to redirect students’ behavior. 

The ‘AI & Proctor Pop-In’ option is the most advanced as it monitors students and alerts proctors in real-time. Further, suspicious student activities are recorded and reported to faculty for them to take action. You can also choose another invigilation option, ‘Record & Review’, where exams are recorded, and an Honorlock proctor will  watch them after the test to identify any suspicious activity and send a report to the faculty member.

Honorlock creates a minimally invasive examination experience where proctors can only intervene after noticing suspicious activity or if students need any assistance. Additionally, when a remote proctor is alerted by AI in a 1:1 setting about a student, they are only focused on that student.

2. Device Detection: 

Preserving the integrity of examinations is becoming increasingly difficult for instructors today due to the number of digital devices that students have access to. Honorlock can often detect devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops being used by students during examinations. 

3. Direct  LMS Integration:

Honorlock directly integrates with your existing learning management system(LMS), which means it’s pretty much the same test experience for instructors and students. It allows faculty to create tests, review reports, and view time-stamped test recordings without any additional login or passwords. Students can also launch exams using the existing LMS and access the support right from the examination window.

4. 3rd Party Test Proctoring:

With Honorlock, instructors can protect the examinations created on popular 3rd party platforms like Pearson, McGraw Hill, MyMathLab, ALEKS, etc. Instructors simply register their 3rd party exams and modify the test settings within the institution LMS. Students too, can launch and take proctored tests on 3rd party platforms just like they normally would.

5. Protecting Test Content:

Test-prep and homework-help sites are a big help to students. However, such websites often scrape content from other websites. As a faculty, it can be frustrating to see the questions prepared by you being published on such sites without your knowledge. Honorlock searches for such leaked content and notifies you. 

6. Smart Voice Detection:

Honorlock can detect voices and specific keywords and phrases such as ‘Hey Siri’, ‘Ok, Google’, and ‘Hi Alexa’ to determine if a student is trying to gain an unfair advantage. It then alerts a live proctor so that they can review and then intervene, if needed, to help redirect students. 

7. In-depth Reports:

Honorlock collects data extensively during examinations to prepare detailed, actionable reports for faculties and institutions. Using time-stamped reports and insights from its LMS dashboard, faculties are better equipped to evaluate student performance while keeping track of exam guideline violations.

Apart from the above features, Honorlock online proctoring solutions are available at flat-rate costs per exam or per student. This helps you estimate your spending and allows you to save money. Additionally, their services include training, implementation, and 24x7x365 free US-based support for both students and faculties. 

Our Final Verdict

Honorlock offers a ton of exclusive proctoring features that put it way ahead of its competition. It allows instructors to customize proctoring experiences for students and enables them to conduct examinations without any additional hassle.

The best part about Honorlock is that while the proctoring features are advanced, they’re easy to use and quick to set up. This is probably why many top-tier universities of all sizes are already using Honorlock.

Honorlock ensures equity in examinations using both AI and its team of US-based proctors, which adds to its credibility. Additionally, features like voice detection protect the exclusivity and integrity of tests.

Considering the unique features, ease of use, and multiple proctoring options that it offers, we give Honorlock a full ‘5-Stars’ in our review, hoping that it will continue to improve the credibility and acceptability of online examinations for institutions in the years to come.

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