Honorlock Resources for Instructors

Students: If your instructor is delivering exams through Honorlock, please see Using Honorlock before getting started.

Instructors: In the spring of 2023, the university moved to reduce and limit the practice of proctoring exams with a remote/online proctoring service to distance learning courses or those in which it is the most effective solution. Instructors are encouraged to take advantage of other proctoring solutions that include the FSU Testing Center, Scantron sheets, and in-class proctoring. If you need assistance redesigning assessments, the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Office of Distance Learning are available to help.

Honorlock helps to enhance the security of exams in Canvas by allowing you to proctor them online. Available for use in distance learning courses (or other courses in which remote/online proctoring is the most effective solution), Honorlock captures screen and webcam footage and flags any unusual activity. Recordings of exam sessions must be manually reviewed. For more information, see the sections below:

Before using Honorlock
Technical requirements
Training
Setup instructions
Support resources
Viewing exam recordings
Recommendations

Before using Honorlock

Honorlock is free to students, staff, and instructors at FSU.
Honorlock does not rely on live (human) proctors to review room scans or address academic misconduct. Rather, Honorlock's software can lock down the student's browser and record the student's screen, webcam, and/or microphone for your review, essentially making you the proctor of the exam. To reduce time spent on footage review, Honorlock's artificial intelligence (A.I.) flags specific behaviors and exam sessions for you.
Honorlock never makes determinations of academic misconduct. For this reason, instructors are responsible for reviewing red-flagged exam recordings and are encouraged to spot-check yellow-flagged and green-flagged recordings as time permits.
Students have access to 24/7 Honorlock technical support. At any time, they can visit Honorlock Support to test their computer/hardware and troubleshoot problems with a live support technician. Honorlock also has a searchable knowledge base for answers to common questions. Additionally, students may chat with an Honorlock technician at any time within the Honorlock interface.
FSU values student privacy and data security. FSU's contract with Honorlock supersedes Honorlock's general Terms of Services and includes specific legal requirements for the privacy and security of student information. Access to exam footage is restricted to the course instructor, TA, and authorized administrators only. See the Honorlock Security and Privacy FAQ webpage for more information.
Honorlock Reference Guide (PDF) provides a guide on basic information on the Honorlock online proctoring application.

Technical requirements

These Honorlock system requirements apply to your students:

A laptop or desktop computer (not a tablet)
A stable and reliable internet connection
Google Chrome browser (make sure you have third-party cookies enabled)
One-time installation of a Chrome browser extension. (The system will guide you through this simple step, and you can remove it after use by following these instructions.)
See Using Honorlock for student technical requirements.

Training

The Office of Distance Learning created the Honorlock Training and Canvas Quizzes site in Canvas, where you can view the "Remote Proctoring for High-Stakes Assessments" webinar recording and find additional resources to help you get set up on Honorlock and learn how to use it. Contact us to receive the self-enrollment access link to this Canvas site.
Need training for your department? Contact us to schedule a session for your faculty and/or staff.

Setup instructions

Important: Never modify or remove the code that Honorlock places in the Canvas "Access Code" box. This is automatically populated by Honorlock and is used to control access to the exam by the automated proctoring system. Modifying the code may result in Honorlock failure, including students' ability to access the exam without codes and launching the exam unproctored.

You must first make Honorlock visible in your course menu. See this article on editing Canvas course menus.
Create your assessment as a Canvas Quiz as you normally would.
Finally, enable Honorlock for your exam by following Honorlock's Using Honorlock with Canvas tutorial.

Note: Exams in courses copied from a previous semester will be disabled in Honorlock by default. Open Honorlock in the course site for the current term and enable the exams that will be proctored online as stated in item #3 above.

Support resources

Honorlock has a searchable knowledge base for answers to common questions.
Honorlock has a status page to verify the system's operational status as well as updates, downtime, and maintenance schedules.
The Honorlock Faculty Guide is your general reference for enabling and using Honorlock. If you're short on time, see the video How to Use Honorlock for a quick overview of the service.
If you are using third-party exams like Pearson or McGraw-Hill, see How to use Honorlock Universal.
Specific Honorlock features:
- How to Enable Honorlock Toggles explains the various security options you can set for your exams. Recommended Options shows FSU A&T's recommendations for these settings.
- How to use Honorlock Whitelisting Feature shows how to allow students to access only specific websites during an exam.
- Practice Quiz explains how to provide your students with an opportunity to try out Honorlock in advance.
- Managing Exam Profiles gives instructions on setting up and using exam profiles so you can easily save and reuse your preferred settings. You can also preview this process via the short video Profile Management.
For instructor help with Honorlock, please email [email protected]. There is also a live-chat option in the Honorlock interface within Canvas, or you can visit their support web page. If you need additional assistance or have further questions, please submit a support ticket and we will respond as soon as possible.

Viewing exam recordings

All instructors should view the exam recordings directly and check for activity flags that may indicate academic misconduct.
See this one-minute video for an overview of the simple process and the View Results Guide for instructions on how to navigate recorded student sessions.
If you experience a session with lost footage, Honorlock provides a feature to request failsafe images.

Recommendations

We recommend including the following syllabus text when choosing to use Honorlock in your course.
We recommend verifying imported exams if you copied your course from a previous term to ensure that Honorlock is enabled for your high-stakes exams.
We strongly recommend creating a practice exam for you and your students to pilot before administering your first graded exam.
Please urge your students to always use the Honorlock chat tool for support during exams.
Please be crystal clear about your exam rules in your syllabus and in the Honorlock instructions for students and proctors text boxes.
When adjusting your Honorlock settings, be mindful of the Student Guidelines portion, which will clarify any test-specific rules in force for your exam. For instance, if your students are having issues finding a quiet, private room to take their exam, you could allow them to take your exam in a public area and to allow background noise by selecting these options:
For questions about information security and privacy, see the Honorlock Security and Privacy FAQ.