Students hear a lot about academic integrity from their colleges and universities, especially at the beginning of each term and during the lead-up to final examinations. Fall orientations include information about honor codes and syllabi that refer students to handbooks for guidelines to avoid academic dishonesty. Academic integrity is a serious topic and worthy of periodic examination.
What does academic integrity mean?
Academic integrity is a code of ethics for students to follow in their courses, exams, and overall behavior. Each student’s work should be their own. Students complete their own assignments, take their own exams, and earn their own grades.
Why academic integrity is Important
In our competitive world, academic integrity is important to ensure that students have a fair and equitable learning experience. Cheating not only hurts the student because it’s an unearned, hollow achievement, but it also robs honest students of the standing that they truly deserve and puts an institution’s reputation at risk.
Academic integrity protects the institution’s reputation
Institutions have a responsibility to safeguard the value of the degrees that they award. Reputation is everything, and no credible educational organization wants to be known as a diploma mill. Universities and colleges want to know that their students honorably earned their grades and possess the knowledge and skills required for their field.
When academic integrity is protected and the educational experience is fair and equitable, everyone wins.
How to create an honor code to deter academic dishonesty
One effective way that colleges and universities can deter academic dishonesty and create an environment of academic integrity is to institute an honor code, sometimes known as an “integrity policy” or “honor policy.”
Honor codes have been shown for decades to reduce cheating by creating a community in which every student knows the standards and feels like a part of an institution that cares about them and their peers.
Honor codes are built on a baseline of trust and students who learn in schools with them are known to encourage each other to be honest in their work. This way, potential academic dishonesty is deterred by their peers, which can help strengthen the bonds of community for students and faculty alike.
Once an institution knows what its values are, it can write them down and make the honor code known to the entire community.
How to protect academic integrity
As online learning becomes more common, another way to protect academic integrity and prevent cheating is online exam proctoring.
Most students seem to understand that there has to be some way for schools to keep their online exams fair when the internet has made it easy for students to look up test answers. It’s important that students understand the type of online proctoring their school uses because it greatly impacts their online testing experience.
The advantages of online proctoring with Honorlock
Honorlock’s online proctoring software and services help create a fair and equitable testing environment that protects online exams and supports students throughout.
Our approach to online proctoring blends the benefits of AI test monitoring software with live human proctors to create a less intrusive test environment that protects online exams and supports students.
We foster trust in students while protecting the academic integrity of degrees and programs. Our online proctoring software directly integrates with your existing LMS and allows instructors to customize college exams online, monitor performance, and generate robust analytics.
Students benefit from 24/7/365 scheduling of online proctored exams whenever and wherever they choose.
How do Honorlock’s proctoring services work?
Honorlock upholds academic integrity with online proctoring that’s monitored by AI and reviewed by humans. Our software and live test proctors make the technical online exam proctoring experience simple, easy, and human.
Honorlock online proctoring provides:
A familiar testing environment
Honorlock’s direct LMS integration means that instructors will create exams just like they already do and students will take the exam in the environment they’re already comfortable with.
AI + live test proctors
If our AI test monitoring software notices possible academic dishonesty, it notifies our live test proctors who can intervene via chat to assess the situation and help the student get back on track. This approach to proctoring online exams can also help reduce student test anxiety.
Detection of cell phone use
Our remote proctoring software can detect when a student attempts to access test bank content during the exam using their cell phone, tablet, and laptop.
Video proctoring and voice detection
Our AI includes video proctoring using the webcam to monitor behavior coupled with our voice detection software which detects sound and listens for specific keywords or phrases, such as “Hey Siri” or “OK Google.”
24/7 proctored exams and support for students and faculty
Honorlock is on-demand, so students can take their proctored online exam when they’re ready and get support – any time, day or night.
60-second ID verification
Honorlock makes ID verification quick and simple by capturing a picture of the test-taker along with their photo ID and then they can begin their online proctored exam.
Test questions and content
Our remote proctoring software searches for leaked test questions and content and works with instructors to request the removal of the material.
Access to reports and recordings
After the exam, we send a comprehensive report of potential incidents and a time-stamped recording to save time.
We know that your reputation and academic integrity mean everything when it comes to attracting students and our online proctoring services play a critical role in your success. That’s why we’ve dedicated ourselves to continually innovating to bring integrity, humanity, confidence, and positive outcomes to the proctored testing experience.
Speak with one of our experts to see how Honorlock works.