University of Florida Goes Remote with Honorlock

University of Florida Testimonial about Honorlock proctoring services

It was 10 weeks into the spring semester when the University of Florida (UF) was faced with migrating 5,000 courses online. Like colleges and universities, UF was forced to halt in-person instruction to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. By March 23, UF had succeeded in meeting the initial challenge.

Implementing online proctoring for 63,000 students

But in the next six weeks, the stakes got higher. The university would be met with another unprecedented undertaking: administering spring midterms and remote exams to more than 63,000 enrolled students.

“As challenging as the remote learning situation has been for the university, there have been many silver linings for us, a partnership with Honorlock has been one of them.” said Brian Marchman, University of Florida Assistant Provost and Director of Distance & Continuing Education.

He added, “We had not planned in our budget for any way to pay for this, so we had to find the funds and not put it on the backs of students, and they were able to make it work for us. We were over a barrel, and they didn’t take advantage of that.”

UF and Honorlock proctored 154,282 exams during the spring semester

“We don’t just say we’re proctoring exams we mean it. We don’t just give it lip service and partial effort. We want students to know their stuff and be able to prove it,” Marchman said. “Honorlock has been able to help us make that a reality.” 

Honorlock succeeded in accommodating the large influx of students needing remote proctoring because the system doesn’t require live proctors to watch each person taking an exam. Instead, the remote proctoring technology uses artificial intelligence to monitor each exam session. If the proctoring software detects possible cheating, it will alert a live proctor who can review the situation and intervene to help the student get back on track.

Students install Honorlock via a Google Chrome browser extension before taking their remote proctored exams. Students access Honorlock directly through their university’s learning management system (LMS).

Demonstrating success to others

University of Florida wasn’t the only institution interested in Honorlock’s online proctoring platform and services model. With colleges and universities across the country in a similar situation, Honorlock quickly onboarded 200 higher education institutions during this trying time.  

University of North Florida (UNF), in Jacksonville, made Honorlock available to students and faculty in April through the university’s Canvas LMS. Honorlock’s online proctoring technology was especially useful for programs that prepared students to test for licenses and certifications, such as accounting and nursing courses, said the Assistant VP of Digital Learning and Innovation, Deb Miller.

Florida International University in Miami had been working with Honorlock for the past four years, primarily with its online-only students. 

As more than 5,600 of its classes went completely remote by mid-March, FIU sought to train faculty and students on effectively using Honorlock and Zoom – the primary tools for its technology transition – over several weeks. 

Michael Hemlepp, Honorlock’s CEO, really believes in a service-oriented culture, both inside Honorlock and in how they treat their customers. “To help institutions navigate the challenges encountered during the pandemic, both technology and talent were scaled to ensure we could provide the services they needed.” 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Polk State College transitioned all classes online and needed to ensure online proctoring was made available immediately following Spring Break. With exams scheduled for that Monday, the Honorlock team was asked to go above and beyond to kickstart the system on Sunday. “I was very happy with the support. They jumped on it with no question,” said Cody Moyer, M.Ed., Director of Learning Technology, Polk State College, Winter Haven, FL

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Tess Mitchell

Tess has 20+ years of experience heading up corporate marketing teams in healthcare and higher education. She is passionate about thinking differently to lead teams to discover new and innovative ways to drive positive outcomes.

Why Honorlock is the Future of Remote Proctoring

Even before the pandemic forced schools to remote education, the most recent educational statistics showed that 6.6 million out of 19.7 million students at American degree-granting postsecondary institutions were pursuing some form of online education. Nearly half of those 6.6 million said that attending regular courses on campus is the greatest barrier to meeting their goals. Online education is clearly opening up an entire world of opportunity to those who would otherwise be unable to benefit. To make the system work, schools need to be certain that their academic standards are rigorously upheld. Assessment is therefore vital, which makes effective remote education software for proctoring crucial. With millions of students, schools need both a reliable and scalable solution.

Honorlock was created by students for students and delights administrators and faculty who have tried other online proctors in the past. Users include schools of all sizes, from small to medium to three of the 10 largest universities in the United States. With so much attention directed at how the academic world is coping during the current global health crisis, Honorlock is well positioned, as the future of remote proctoring, to play an important role in maintaining academic integrity for schools and enabling life-changing success for students with its remote education software.

What is remote proctoring?

The 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act requires that institutions “verify the identity of students to ensure those who register for an online course are the ones who participate.” 

Remote proctoring authenticates both that the student signed up for a given online course is the one performing its work, and that exam-takers are using no unauthorized aids. In general, remote proctoring can be performed exclusively via AI or include a live proctor who takes control of a student’s computer and watches them for the duration. It might function to lock the student’s browser so that they cannot access other websites during the test, except for those approved by the professor. Honorlock brings the best of these functions to bear, while eliminating the worst.

Can a remote proctor see your screen?

The first question most students ask is whether someone will be watching their screen. With Honorlock, the answer is yes and no. The student’s webcam will be recording during the test, but no one is watching their exam in real-time. AI technology monitors each session, and, if it senses that something is wrong, it will trigger a live proctor to “Pop-in” via chat—no one’s face will float on the screen.   

The proctor will assess the situation, help the student get back on track, and post any notes about the incident for the faculty member before the exams need to be marked. After the test, one of our exam proctors may review the exam session to look for any potential violations, and a recording and any proctor notes will also be made available to the instructor.

What if the system flags something that isn’t a violation?

Honorlock uses a combination of AI technology and human proctors because we understand that things happen. Our hybrid approach is non-invasive, ensuring that students are able to keep full focus on their exams without any external distractions. If, for example, a test-taker accidentally looks off into the distance or their roommate (or little brother or sister, thanks to the pandemic) suddenly enters the room, then our human proctor will pop in via chat to assess the situation, make sure there isn’t an academic violation, and help the student to continue with the exam. Other possible triggers for a live proctor pop-in include insufficient lighting, background noise, or an incomplete room scan. Following the completion of the remotely proctored exam, the instructor will also be able to review the recording provided to review any flagged incidents.

Can you cheat on an online proctored exam?

Nearly 2,500 years ago, Greek dramatist Sophocles famously professed that he would “prefer to fail with honor than to win by cheating.” While most people would agree with him in spirit, in practice some convince themselves otherwise, especially if they perceive that the chances of being caught are slim. It is therefore incumbent upon schools to take steps to protect their degrees and programs for the majority of their students who are on Team Sophocles and committed to succeeding with honor. 

Since there will always be some who stop at nothing to find a shortcut, the value of remote proctoring is most pronounced as a deterrent. To that end, Honorlock provides the best methods of deterrence available. Cody Moyer, Director of Learning Technology at Polk State College puts it succinctly: “The features that Honorlock has to offer blew everyone else out of the water,” adding that the most powerful for him were Search and Destroy™ and Multi-Device Detection. Without actually taking control of smartphones or tablets a student may have secreted during the 360-degree scan of their test environment, Honorlock’s patented technology can tell when such devices are searching the internet for test answers. At that point, our on-demand and always available certified proctors can intervene and return the student to the right track.

Can virtual proctoring really do all it promises?

With Honorlock’s blended AI and live Pop-In proctors it certainly can—and already is—for an increasing number of American colleges and universities seeking to uphold academic integrity while they broaden their reach or simply cope with the coronavirus.  Students can take their exams exactly when they feel most intellectually, physically, and emotionally prepared. Whether that be 2 p.m. or 2 a.m., our 24/7/365 support is ready to help.

University of Florida psychology lecturer Ryan Mears adds that virtual proctoring does even more than expected: 

“Honorlock was more than a tool to guard or block students from using inappropriate information. It was also a means to detect and determine many different ways that students approach the exams. Because of access to the wealth of data/information through Honorlock, I became better able to utilize it.”

Honorlock has helped tens of thousands of students achieve their online education dreams in the past five years, and is proud to stand ready to help millions more in the next decade and beyond with its remote education software.

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Tess Mitchell

Tess has 20+ years of experience heading up corporate marketing teams in healthcare and higher education. She is passionate about thinking differently to lead teams to discover new and innovative ways to drive positive outcomes.

Comparing Online Proctoring Services

No sooner has the most unprecedented and disrupted academic term in modern history finished, than colleges and university administrators must make difficult decisions about their plans for the 2020-21 academic year. You can see what your likely options are in our previous blog entry. 

As an increasing number of schools redesign their courses to give students the greatest chance of success from an online environment, exam proctoring systems offered by companies such as Honorlock are being called on to help ensure the integrity of academic assessments. The best are grounded in a student-centric approach that results in features that empower rather than punish. 

Let’s take a look at how Honorlock’s capabilities compare with other online proctoring services.

Faculty Content Protection

A common worry of course instructors is that their test questions will appear elsewhere online. Search and Destroy™, Honorlock’s proprietary test bank removal technology, seeks out and eliminates unauthorized copies of test questions. Test bank websites have made leaked test questions too tempting for certain students to find and share, and no other proctoring company searches for and removes that content for the school. Dr. Juliette Mersiowsky of Longwood University reports that Honorlock’s Search and Destroy feature “surprised and delighted” her faculty. For added protection, we also prevent students from copying, pasting, and printing during the exam. Instructors using Honorlock rest easy knowing they won’t have to create new test questions each term.

On-time Reporting

Dr. Jill Simpson of the University of North Alabama trialed four different online proctoring services over two years after her school’s faculty reported that some students “felt that they were being penalized because they were NOT cheating.” One solution could effectively verify students’ identities, but it wasn’t easy to use. Moreover, the exam report took two weeks to get to faculty, in many cases after grades were due which meant that it was too late to address potential infractions. Honorlock’s real-time reporting freed UNA faculty from this dilemma.

Integration with your LMS and Third-Party Exams

Students want minimal administrative hassle in the first few moments before taking an exam. Anything that adds more tension to an already stressful situation is best avoided. Honorlock can also seamlessly integrate our security with multiple third-party exam systems such as MyMathLab, ALEKS, Pearson, and McGraw Hill.

Detecting the Use of Secondary Device

Any minimally effective online proctoring system will ensure that students cannot freely access other tabs or windows. The most significant challenge, meanwhile, is how to prevent students from accessing study materials or test answers via smartphones or tablets. Honorlock has patented a first-in-the-industry system to solve this problem. During the exam, Honorlock detects the use of secondary devices, prevents them from accessing test bank information, and takes a screen recording of the attempted infarction. The result is that students are rewarded for their demonstrated knowledge and the integrity of your courses and degrees is sustained.

Relevant Voice Detection in Real-Time

Some competitors offer simple alerts that faculty tell us detect too many sounds that may occur during an exam session. Over-flagging incidental sounds annoys faculty and puts unnecessary stress on students. Honorlock’s AI proctoring services deliver a smarter voice detection system that reduces false flags and gives students who like to read questions aloud the peace of mind that they will not be penalized improperly. Honorlock’s Voice Detection feature listens for more than just specific keywords or phrases, such as “Hey Siri” or OK Google.” When a valid issue arises it immediately alerts a live proctor who will pop into the exam session via chat to determine whether the student is acting appropriately.

Live vs. AI Proctoring

Scheduling Frustration

Honorlock offers the Goldilocks approach when it comes to Live vs. AI proctoring. Some completely automated services record the test-taking session and then review it afterward. One of these, as reviewed by Dr. Simpson, was fine with students but not faculty as it was clunky and could not verify student identities. On the other hand, live proctoring that verifies identities by forcing students to schedule a specific exam time has its own drawbacks. A student who misses the appointment may have to pay a fee and then wait 24 hours to reschedule. Imagine the calamity if the exam in question was set to close before those 24 hours had expired!

Test Anxiety

Having a proctor’s face hovering in a box on the student’s screen serves mostly to increase test anxiety— “creepy” is a common way for students to describe the experience. Honorlock avoids both this problem and scheduling frustration with a blended on-demand solution that verifies each student’s identity quickly and easily and monitors their tests via AI proctoring. Should a potential violation occur, one of our 24/7/365 certified proctoring team is alerted. They will see an analysis window first, then pause the student’s exam and “Pop-in” via chat box to redirect the student. A live proctor must catch infractions live or else miss them, which can be a serious challenge when watching up to 10 students simultaneously for extended periods. When our certified Live Pop-In proctor is alerted by the AI, the proctor focuses exclusively on the one student.

User-friendly Experience

The ideal exam proctoring service will be welcomed by both faculty and students. It will uphold academic integrity while respecting each student’s privacy. We do not sell that information to third parties.

It takes a lot of effort to make the complicated seem simple, which is a considerable part of the genius that sets Honorlock apart. Honorlock’s minimal intrusiveness and maximum ease of use, backed up by world-class always-available US-based support allows students to focus on their academic success and school administrators and faculty to preserve the value of your degrees and programs.

The Definitive Guide for Comparing Online Proctoring Services

Read The Guide

This guide covers 5 important areas to consider:

Why is online proctoring needed?

What are the types of online exam proctoring

Functionality questions to ask

Implementation and support questions to ask

Cost structures and avoiding additional costs

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Alice Cifuentes

Alice has several years of marketing experience within healthcare and most recently in higher education focused on social media growth, tradeshow management, and communication. She is passionate about creatively navigating new challenges and discovering innovative ways to connect with educators.

9 Best Practices to Ensure Online Testing Integrity

How to protect online testing integrity

How to protect online testing integrity

  1.  Low Stakes Assessments – Nothing is worse for a learner than to realize their midterm or final will be taken with new proctoring software.  “Who are these people?  Does my school not trust me? What if the software glitches and I can’t finish my test?”  Rest assured, none of that will happen with Honorlock, but your test takers might not know that. Use low stakes assessments – provide a practice test or think of fun quizzes so that students can get comfortable with the proctoring software in a stress-free environment.
  2. Test Banks – Use test banks that to randomize questions for students students. And make sure that is known so they won’t be tempted in the first place!
  3. Concepts and Understanding – How questions are worded can make a big impact on how to gauge understanding. For example, try to craft questions that students answer conceptually rather than a simple definition. Using concepts helps students learn more and actually tests their knowledge.
  4. Limit Information Access – It goes without saying that limiting access to information during test-taking is the reason for proctoring services.  You need your students to be able to show they master content without looking up information. But, you also need to make sure you don’t lock them out of necessary information they don’t need to commit to memory in order to solve a problem or demonstrate their mastery of a particular subject.  Things like figures and tables they need to solve a problem should be provided in the question or websites whitelisted in the proctoring system. This helps students not spend precious brainpower remembering models when you really want to see if they can solve a problem in context.
  1. Knowledge Application – An important aspect of teaching and learning is how well your students can apply the knowledge you taught them. Keeping reference material at bay during a test shows you they have mastered the material and can apply it. This is important to employers as well. Employers will one day take that student as an employee.
  2. Trust, but Verify – Using online proctoring on all tests lets students know that it’s an expectation of your course. It’s also important to have a conversation with students about why academic integrity is so important – to the school, but also to the students who will have earned their degree in your institution. 
  3. Syllabus Information – Your syllabus can work wonders in explaining expectations, test rules and why cheating is never an answer.
  4. Find Methods to Observe Behavior – Anyone that has developed online learning will tell you what one intends sometimes is not what is practiced. This means that students can sometimes misunderstand specifics that you might have felt were obvious. For that reason, it’s important to pencil in a full quality check that includes reviewing the usage logs (who is having trouble), watch the proctoring videos, or maybe even a search of student discussions.  All these help you see how your testing is being consumed so you can tailor it if need be.
  5. Request feedback – Let students know you want to know and encourage them to provide feedback to you. 

Tip:  Listen to the feedback objectively and then do something constructive with it.  It could be something as simple as someone needs further explanation, but you won’t know if you don’t ask!

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Jan Wilson

As an organizational development and learning consultant, Jan has provided strategic planning, process alignment, change management, curriculum development and planning, as well as learning solutions to a variety of clients in pharma, healthcare and state governments. Jan earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in information technology from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a Master of Education in Human Resource Development from Vanderbilt University, also in Nashville, Tennessee. Additionally, she has served as adjunct faculty at the Peabody School of Vanderbilt University.

Honorlock’s Pledge To You During COVID

We’re Here for You During COVID

To our customers, friends, partners, and the entire higher education community,

As we move forward during this crisis, we recognize that many of you – administrators, faculty, and students – are navigating new waters as you transition to online courses. Our HonorSquad wants you to know that we’re here for you and praying for your health and safety.

Our focus is to ensure you have the support you need during this transition. We are already actively working with many of you who have transitioned to a fully online model and with others who are preparing to make the jump.

Click for information about implementing online proctoring if your institution is moving to online learning related to COVID.

Here are a few things we’re preparing to help you during this time:

Scaling online proctoring

Honorlock is cloud-hosted and has the ability to auto-scale to keep up with the increase in usage we anticipate. To ensure that we haven’t missed anything along the way we have:

    • Been in contact with AWS to ensure we can provision (proactively), extra capacity to ensure we are operating at a level that is severely higher than any volume expected.
    • Working with our partners (3rd party tools) who provide services such as video services, to ensure they too understand our expected spike in volume, they can provision and scale services, and that we work closely throughout this time to effectively manage the increase together.
  • We have increased our staff (as we do during finals) to account for the proctoring load required in the coming weeks. We are monitoring exam volumes continuously throughout the day and we have staff on standby should we need them.

Support & Training for Faculty

We understand that moving to online learning can create challenges and requires more help from our support and training organizations. To meet this need, we have also ramped up support and will continue to do so as needed. In addition, we have same-day training available for institutions that need to train new faculty members. We want to make sure you have all the resources you need to be successful so no matter the need, we’ve got you! All you have to do is ask.

We know there’s a lot of information available to you and a lot of information coming at you. We want to be helpful and not add to the noise. We feel hopeful as we see the community coming together to share ideas, best practices and support. We are here to help when you need us.

Reach out to use to see how we can help you implement online proctoring in 2 days to protect exams and support your students and faculty during COVID

Set Up Proctoring in 2 Days

Tyler Stike

Tyler is Honorlock's Director of Content and a doctoral student at the University of Florida focused on educational technology.

Maximizing Efficiency in Education: AI & Automation

If you’ve ever caught yourself feeling overwhelmed by the thought of adapting to new technology in education, you’re not alone — the field is evolving so quickly that it can be challenging to keep up. And, while it’s true that not every shiny new solution is necessary or helpful, it’s essential to evaluate each one and implement those that will improve the experiences of your students and faculty. 

When considering a new piece of technology, you have several priorities to balance. One is efficiency — does this new tool make things run more smoothly, or does it create friction and frustration for everyone involved? At the same time, it’s vital to maintain a sense of humanity and connection — students want to know that they are more than a number and that their learning experience is specific to them. While these goals may seem to conflict with one another, in reality, they often go hand-in-hand.

A Shared Solution

By integrating automation and artificial intelligence into the classroom, you can begin to respond to concerns about both efficiency and personalized learning. This works in several ways. By increasing efficiency in education for teachers, you save them time, allowing them more bandwidth to connect with each student. They can identify struggles, provide guidance and tailor the learning experience. At the same time, implementing artificial intelligence can provide a more personalized learning experience as the software adapts to each student’s needs and helps them learn. And, by creating an efficient and easily navigable context for students, you also offer them more mental capacity to focus on learning. Instead of worrying about the minute details of class scheduling or how to take an exam, they can attend office hours and study sessions to gain further clarity on difficult material. 

Automation and Artificial Intelligence

 At Honorlock, we’ve seen first-hand just how valuable AI and automation can be in the classroom. We’re continually evaluating new educational technologies to find the most useful and streamlined solutions for efficiency in education. Wondering how these tools can help contribute to efficient teaching strategies in your context? Here are four of our favorite ways to harness the power of technology in education. 

  1. Class Registration — When it comes to implementing automation, class registration can be a great place to start. Students love the convenience of registering online from anywhere and using a system that can easily cross-check issues like prerequisites eliminates potential mistakes and helps students stay on track with their degree plans. It’s easier than ever for students to track their academic progress and work with their advisors to create the perfect schedule from semester to semester. AI and automation in this process can also ensure that a student never double books their time. This can prevent headaches down the road from having to change class schedules at the last minute and helps students make sure they get into every course they need each semester so they can graduate in a timely manner.
  2. Room Scheduling & Facilities Management — Few things are more frustrating than reserving a room on campus, only to find that someone else has also reserved it and is already using it. This is a challenge for scheduling conference rooms and private study rooms, but it’s even more of a problem when it comes to classrooms — sometimes disrupting an entire class period (or more) as faculty sort out the issue. Thanks to AI and automation, however, this is becoming less and less of a problem on campuses. By using an intelligent scheduler, your school can prevent conflicts and ensure that the correct people are in the correct place at the correct time. And, by adding automation, you can make it even easier to schedule recurring events like meetings and classes. Ultimately, by making this process smoother and less frustrating, you can help your students and your faculty focus on the learning experience rather than the logistics required to make it happen.
  3. Grading — For faculty, one of the most challenging parts of the day can be facing the stack of papers left at the end of class. Whether assignments are physical or digital, the task of grading can seem impossible. TAs have long been part of solving this problem, and they continue to be vital in the grading process, but, especially in large classes, the amount of correction required can still be overwhelming. Thanks to new developments in AI and automation, however, it can be easier than ever to manage. Whether checking for plagiarism, correcting grammar or grading multiple-choice assessments, there are more tools than ever to help faculty spend less time focused on minute details and more time focused on concepts and student success. 
  4. Online Exams — One of the simplest and most important places to integrate automation and artificial intelligence is in exams. Students are looking for a straightforward on-demand process, and faculty want to know that students are maintaining integrity in answering questions. With a solution like Honorlock’s Live Proctor Pop-In, your institution gets the best in online exams. Students don’t have to schedule in advance — their exams are ready and waiting for them 24/7/365. Throughout the test, students are monitored by artificial intelligence. If the system detects a potential violation, such as talking to someone else in the room or walking away from the computer, it alerts a live proctor. They then pop into the exam session to check in with the student. If the student is attempting to cheat, the proctor can intervene appropriately. If not, they can get the student back on track with the rest of their test. Both students and faculty can have confidence that tests will be proctored effectively, helping students focus on learning and faculty focus on teaching instead of worrying about the logistics of exams.

Using Technology to Maximize Efficiency in Education

When it comes to equipping students to learn well, efficiency is a crucial element. By implementing automation and AI, you free faculty and students from worrying about minute details. Ultimately, this leads to a greater focus on education and higher rates of student success. 

To learn more about automation and AI in Honorlock’s online proctoring system, click here.

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Tess Mitchell

Tess has 20+ years of experience heading up corporate marketing teams in healthcare and higher education. She is passionate about thinking differently to lead teams to discover new and innovative ways to drive positive outcomes.

4 Ways Technology is Changing How Students Learn

Ever-evolving technology is continually changing the ways we live in and interact with the world, and education is no different. Today’s educators are tasked with charting the course forward, implementing the innovations that are beneficial and useful while avoiding those that aren’t.

With so many new online teaching solutions on the horizon, however, it can be difficult to determine the right next steps. After all, as an administrator, you are not merely choosing whether or not to use new technology at your school. Y

ou’re trying to parse out the options that will help your students learn best, allow you to offer education to the most people, and help your faculty streamline their processes so students can succeed—all while ensuring that everyone involved is aware of how new software works and assured that their data is secure while using it.

Everyone involved wants to know that these new teaching technology alternatives are just as effective as the systems they’re replacing, and no one wants to feel as though the human touch in education is disappearing altogether. Instead, they want access to technology that can extend their reach. But what does that technology look like?

Technology in the Classroom

Even when students are attending classes in person, educational technology is changing the way they learn. Especially in larger lecture courses, digital innovations help everyone’s voice be heard when an instructor asks a question, and it also gives instructors room for creativity in things as simple as taking attendance by having each student present answer a question from their own device.

It also allows instructors to more easily bring guest instructors into the classroom via videoconference, record lectures for students who may need to review later and create more engaging presentations of their content. Instructors have nearly endless opportunities to innovate thanks to new technology in the classroom.

Remote Education Innovations

Where educational tech shines, however, is in online education. Schools today know that, if they want to grow their programs, online education is key to their success. More students than ever before are looking for education that will fit into their lives—not the other way around. And online education lets them do exactly that.

From lectures to homework to classroom participation to exams, students can experience every piece of their education remotely. All they need to enroll in your program is a computer with internet access—a fairly low barrier to entry for most students.

The Challenges of Online Assessments

While this online learning technology can improve the student experience by making education accessible to more people than ever before, there can still be some stumbling blocks. For many schools, exams are the first one they run into. Can you ensure that remote assessments are as secure and accurate as in-person exams? After all, in the classroom, remote proctoring is the same as it’s always been.

Even with new devices and learning technology at students’ fingertips, the remote proctor’s job is virtually the same—ensure that students aren’t accessing external resources (whether on paper or on a screen). When the entire exam takes place online, remote proctoring becomes significantly more difficult. There are solutions, however.

Because staff and faculty can’t proctor exams for distance learners in person, they need tools to ensure that exams are being effectively administered. That typically means enlisting the assistance of an online proctoring service who can provide the innovative online teaching solutions your faculty needs to ensure academic integrity.

Solutions to the Online Proctoring Problem

In a world where most students have access to multiple devices—from smartphones and watches to external monitors and tablets—what does it look like to prevent academic dishonesty in distance learning? How can you choose an online proctoring solution that will effectively address your faculty’s concerns about testing integrity without compromising the student experience? How can you set students up for success by ensuring that they’re taking the proctored exam process seriously?

Here are a few ways an effective online proctoring solution can help:

  • Browser Locking — As a baseline, any online proctoring system should give instructors the ability to secure the student’s browser to prevent them from accessing other tabs, windows, or external applications. By keeping students on the exam page, you can help them focus on their assessment and prevent them from attempting to access test answers.
  • Printer Prevention — In order to help faculty protect their exam content, you’ll want to provide them with a system that prevents students from seeing the entire exam at once and blocks their ability to capture the data—whether by printing, copying and pasting, or taking a screenshot. This is especially important because, in an online proctoring context, students are taking exams at different times and so may be more motivated to try to share information with one another.
  • Customizable Guidelines — Like in-person exams, instructors need the flexibility to set specific test rules and guidelines —whether it’s open-book or on a specific time limit. And, when they are able to set specific expectations, proctors are more easily able to ensure the security of the exam, only flagging students for behavior that is actually problematic.
  • ID Verification — Online testing also creates the possibility for a student to enlist help by asking someone else to take their exam. Thanks to continued technical advancements, however, it’s easier than ever for online proctoring software to verify student identity prior to beginning the exam, ensuring that each student earns the grade they receive.
  • Detecting Secondary Devices — This may be the stickiest question when it comes to exams—how can proctors ensure that students aren’t using their smartphones to access test information? Technology that helps proctors detect the use of additional devices and allows them to intervene to stop the behavior can go a long way toward helping you prevent dishonesty.

Online Proctoring to Improve Learning

Whether you’re ready to find out how online proctoring can help your program offer education to more students than ever before or are looking for a new, more technically advanced proctoring software, Honorlock can help. You want to offer your students the best possible education, and that includes secure tests with the right features to help you protect your program’s academic integrity.

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Tess Mitchell

Tess has 20+ years of experience heading up corporate marketing teams in healthcare and higher education. She is passionate about thinking differently to lead teams to discover new and innovative ways to drive positive outcomes.

Live Online Proctoring: Pros & Cons

In the world of academic testing services, there is an ever-increasing array of options, enabling each institution to choose the best approach for their students and staff. While some may opt to continue offering exams in person, the growth of online education programs necessitates the flexibility provided by virtual proctoring.

However, even after making the decision to use online proctoring software, you will likely find yourself facing many more questions and decisions. Test proctoring services offer unattended automated exams, real-time live proctored exams and everything in between. Determining which format is best for your institution can be overwhelming but researching each online proctoring approach is a great way to get started.

To begin, we’ll consider live online proctoring — the positives, the negatives and why it might (or might not) be the best choice for your school.

Live Online Proctoring: The Cons

Unfortunately, live online proctoring has some significant drawbacks — because a proctor has to be present at every session, everything from scheduling to the exam experience itself can be more complicated. In addition, it is often a more costly solution for institutions.

  • Divided Attention — In many live proctoring scenarios, a single proctor monitors several students at a time — in some cases, up to ten at once. Unfortunately, this divides their attention and can impact the accuracy of their proctoring. While they are observing each student’s behavior throughout the entire exam, they may also miss attempts at academic dishonesty because they were focused on another student. This potential for distraction can undermine instructors’ confidence in the reports they receive for each exam, and it may also make students feel as though they can get away with dishonest behavior, emboldening them to make further cheating attempts in future exams.
  • Inconvenient Scheduling — Live proctoring requires exactly that — someone who can proctor a student’s exam live. As a result, most remote proctoring services limit when students can take exams and require them to schedule in advance. This is frustrating for students and can even lead to additional fees if something in their schedule changes, causing them to miss their time slot. Amidst their busy schedules, students are looking for convenient exam options, allowing them to take their exam whenever they are ready — whether it’s over lunch or after a late-night study session. Unfortunately, when they are tied to a live proctor’s schedule, this isn’t feasible.
  • Student Self-Consciousness — There’s one final drawback to live proctoring, and that is the student experience. Often, when students have a sense that they are being watched, they don’t perform as well on assessments. For honest students, in particular, this can be frustrating and may lead to scores that don’t accurately reflect the student’s body of knowledge. While it’s an effective way to rein in cheating, it also feeds self-consciousness and can feel like a punishment – an assumption of guilt. Many students find exams proctored in real-time to be more invasive and frustrating as they try to focus on the test content rather than the reality that someone is watching them throughout the process.

Live Online Proctoring: The Pros

Of course, there are several benefits to live online proctoring. It can increase faculty confidence in the online testing process and help administrators trust that the testing process will run smoothly.

  • Real-Time Intervention — When a student sits down at a computer to take an exam with a live remote proctor, they are monitored by someone who can intervene if something is amiss. Whether that’s because a student is attempting dishonest behavior (by, for instance, talking to someone else in the room) or because it appears that way (by reading questions aloud to themselves), a live proctor can immediately connect with the student and assess the situation. In the event of dishonesty, they can remind students of the rules and help them complete the rest of their exam with integrity. If, on the other hand, it was a miscommunication, they can easily verify so and help the student resume testing. Either way, in-the-moment intervention helps students have a better exam experience.
  • Human Touch — In a live online proctoring scenario, both students and faculty benefit from the assurance that a human is at the helm of all proctoring decisions. While the role of AI in educational technology is continually evolving to create new opportunities, it also raises concerns and questions for students and instructors alike. Live proctoring, on the other hand, puts everyone at ease because they are confident that their proctor is making accurate judgments throughout the testing process. Both parties have the assurance that, because the exam is proctored live, the report of the student’s behavior sent to their instructor is an accurate reflection of their testing experience.

Live Online Proctoring without the Cons

While many schools like the security provided by live proctors, the decision is not that simple—student experience continues to be key to program success, and live proctoring makes students uncomfortable. They have a harder time concentrating on their exam because they’re aware of a proctor watching them (and may even see that proctor via webcam in the corner of their screen).

The good news is that you can get all the benefits of live proctoring in a way that also helps students to succeed. In many cases, the right online proctoring approach is not live proctoring or automated, unattended proctoring but a hybrid of both.

With a solution like Honorlock’s Live Proctor Pop-In, schools get all the benefits of live proctoring, but students also get the freedom and convenience of an automated exam. Powerful AI proctoring monitors student behavior and alerts a live human proctor when intervention is needed, allowing for a real-time response when an issue arises. And it’s all on-demand, so students can take their exams whenever and wherever they are ready — 24/7/365.

For a further discussion of the benefits of advancing and refining online learning by removing the opportunity and temptation to cheat, have a look at our white paper on the topic.

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Tess Mitchell

Tess has 20+ years of experience heading up corporate marketing teams in healthcare and higher education. She is passionate about thinking differently to lead teams to discover new and innovative ways to drive positive outcomes.

What Your Proctor Wants You to Know: 4 Keys to Student Exam Success

Whether you’re new to the format of online exams or just need a refresher, you may have questions about how Honorlock proctored exams work and how you can be your very best for testing. Two of our proctors, Corey and Sa’ed, are here to answer your questions and give you some of their top online test taking tips!

How does the exam work?

You’ll start the exam from your school’s LMS. Keep in mind, all exams have different levels of security, which are customized by your instructor. If you are taking a high stakes exam (like your midterm or final), you can assume that as soon as you begin, your browser will be locked so you can’t access unauthorized information. You’ll be asked to present an ID so we can verify your identity, and then we’ll have you complete a 360 room scan to make sure there aren’t any notes left out or friends in the room. At this point, you’ll be off to the races! The only reason we’ll interrupt you with a Live Pop-In is if our system detects that something might be amiss. 

What is a Live Proctor Pop-In?

Live Pop-In is how our proctors connect with you if our artificial intelligence software detects a potential incidence of academic dishonesty. This could be another person in the room, the use of a secondary display or mobile device, your face going off-screen, or wearing hats, headphones or hoodies. When our proctors pop in, your exam will pause and the exam content will be hidden from view and then a chat box will open so you can communicate with your proctor. We chose to interact with students via chat versus face-to-face video based on student feedback that video felt invasive and creepy. Don’t worry, if you would rather just communicate with us verbally you can do that too. 

Can my proctor see and hear me during the exam?

Yes, they can. For the most part, however, you will be monitored by technology that will alert a proctor if a problem arises. 

When can I take my exam?

Whenever you’re ready! (Well, within your instructor’s deadlines, of course.) Our solution is available on-demand, so there’s no need to schedule a proctor to take your exam. If you’re ready to go at 3 am on Thanksgiving, all you need to do is start. We’ll be ready for you! Because of our deep integration with your LMS, our proprietary algorithms are able to predict the number of exams, the number of students and the time of day exams will be taken, which allows us to ensure we are always adequately staffed.

Do you have any exam tips?

  1. Trust us. We are on your side. We know what it’s like to be a student, and we know how stressful exams can be. Our goal is for the testing process to be as smooth as possible—from the comfort of your own home.
  2. Don’t start your exam at the last minute. There’s always a possibility that you’ll run into technical difficulties, and that can add to the stress. Give yourself enough leeway before the due date to take the exam.
  3. Study your material. Our artificial intelligence (and our proctors) are pretty smart—you’ll have a hard time getting much of anything past them. Your best bet when preparing for an exam is to study hard so you don’t have to resort to academic dishonesty and risk getting caught.
  4. Pay close attention to the exam guidelines. Live Pop-Ins can be disruptive to your exam experience and we try to keep them to a minimum, but we need your help in following directions. Make sure you’re in full view of the camera and make sure you’re alone in the room. (We’d hate to interrupt you because our system detects someone talking in the background when it’s just a roommate or sibling walking behind you.) Following the rules will help ensure that you don’t invite any unnecessary interruptions.

What if I’m having technical difficulties?

You can access our support team 24/7/365. You also have access to Support from the chat window before, during, and after the exam. The way we build our tool, once you log in we have access to who you are, your device info, and where you are in the LMS or Exam. This helps us troubleshoot the issue quicker, which means we get you back focused on your exam faster. We wish you all the best on your exams!

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Tess Mitchell

Tess has 20+ years of experience heading up corporate marketing teams in healthcare and higher education. She is passionate about thinking differently to lead teams to discover new and innovative ways to drive positive outcomes.

AI from a Proctor’s Perspective

Earlier this month, we sat down with two Honorlock remote proctors to hear about online exams from their point of view. Many thanks to Corey and Sa’ed for joining us to share their experiences. For more, you can read A Day in the Life of an Online Proctor. During our discussion, we asked them for their perspectives on several specific topics, including artificial intelligence. 

AI is currently a hot topic for discussion and debate in educational technology and with good reason—it provides new possibilities for both online and on-campus program growth, and, when used well, can lead to higher rates of student success. 

In the best cases, AI is paired with human involvement to provide the highest-quality education possible. And who better to pull back the curtain than two of the humans involved in that process? 

AI in Online Proctoring

Some automated proctoring solutions rely heavily on AI. While this has benefits, including ease of scheduling, there’s also a major drawback—no live proctor is present to intervene in real-time in the case of academic dishonesty. These exams are often reviewed after the fact by proctors, but at that point, all an instructor can do is take disciplinary action. There’s no opportunity for the student to get back on track during the exam. 

On the other hand, many proctoring platforms only use live proctoring. A live proctor is more able to intervene and often helps faculty feel at ease about the rigor of the testing process, but there are some drawbacks here as well. A live proctor’s attention is divided between multiple students, so they may miss an incident, and scheduling can also be a challenge for students. 

Live Proctor Pop-In

Honorlock’s remote proctors (and our technology) provide the perfect hybrid between automated and live proctoring so students and schools get the best of both. 

Live Pop-In means that the AI doesn’t actually make decisions about student behavior. Instead, it flags a potential incident so a live proctor can pop in to assess the situation. The AI flags common problems—like a student talking to someone else in the room—and the proctor pops in to identify what’s happening and intervene as needed. 

At the same time, the human aspect helps put students at ease—they know that the system doesn’t make the final call, so they don’t have to worry as much about accidentally doing something that might create a flag (like, for instance, reading a question aloud to themselves). 

How do remote proctors and AI work together?

To provide the best insight into how our AI works, we asked Corey and Sa’ed about their experiences working with it on a day-to-day basis. 

Corey: Live Pop-In is our way of intervening in a student’s session to get them back on track. If the AI detects potential dishonesty, it alerts us so we can pause the exam and start a live chat with the student to address the violation and correct the behavior in a timely manner.  It helps prevent academic dishonesty because we are able to intervene at the moment (often before cheating actually happens). This process also helps teach students the importance of having integrity, not only for their exams and courses but also for their professional lives after graduation.

Sa’ed: We try to prevent academic dishonesty before students even answer that first question. For instance, if we see notes during their pre-exam room scan, we can ask them to put the notes away. A student might be misinformed about the rules of their exam or may not have paid attention to the instructions. They usually comply and are able to move on with the exam as planned. 

How do remote proctors benefit from artificial intelligence?

Sa’ed: The AI helps keep us informed so we can make sure we’re paying attention to all exam sessions. I don’t have to worry about a student leaving and going off camera because, if they do, the AI will alert us and we will immediately attend to the alert. This makes my role as a proctor a bit easier.

Corey: As a human proctor, I don’t have the ability to watch every single student taking an exam at once, so we use artificial intelligence to help the proctoring team monitor students. If we receive a notification that the AI has detected multiple faces in the webcam, we will prioritize our time to assess the situation and intervene as necessary. I’m honored (no pun intended!) to be part of a company that constantly innovates and improves our artificial intelligence. Our AI is a great tool, and we have a fantastic engineering team that works on it.

What is your favorite Honorlock AI feature for exam proctoring?

Corey: We have a speech detection element that transcribes what students say out loud during their exams, and it alerts us if it hears specific keywords (such as “Hey Siri” or “Okay, Google”). It really helps when we have a high volume of students testing at the same time. 

Sa’ed: It’s pretty thorough at doing what it’s designed to do — from face detection to mobile phone use. If it detects a student using their phone, iPad or SmartWatch outside the view of the webcam, it alerts us. It documents exactly what the student is searching for and clicking on and their search activity is logged for the instructor to address with them.

Thanks to Corey and Sa’ed for joining us to answer a few questions about artificial intelligence and online proctoring. They’ll be back soon for one more post with exam tips to help students succeed. 

For more about artificial intelligence in higher education, read Artificial Intelligence and Online Proctoring: Friend or Foe? 

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Tess Mitchell

Tess has 20+ years of experience heading up corporate marketing teams in healthcare and higher education. She is passionate about thinking differently to lead teams to discover new and innovative ways to drive positive outcomes.