Honorlock (online proctoring)

Honorlock is an online proctoring tool available in iLearn. It works through a Google Chrome extension and uses the student's own webcam and microphone to record an exam session. AI flags moments that may need a look (another person in the room, eyes consistently off screen, another tab or app opened). After the exam you review the flagged moments rather than every recording start to finish. There is no live proctor watching; you are the proctor, and Honorlock never decides whether a student cheated.

It works with both Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes, and Honorlock gives students 24/7 live chat support during an exam. The college pays for it; there is no cost to students.

Before you decide to use it

Use it for the exams that need it, typically a midterm and a final, not every quiz. Every proctored exam costs some students a scramble for a quiet room, a working webcam and a stable connection.
Choose the fewest settings that protect the exam. For many exams, Record Screen plus Browser Guard is enough. Add Record Webcam and Student ID when identity matters.
Have a plan B. Some students will not be able to use Honorlock: no webcam, no private space, assistive technology that Honorlock blocks, or a disability-related accommodation that conflicts with a setting. Decide now what you will offer instead (see Alternatives and accommodations).
Fully online courses cannot require a campus visit. You may offer an on-campus or testing-center option as the alternative, but you cannot require it (DE Faculty Handbook, "Proctoring for Online Classes").
Consider whether the exam could be redesigned instead: question banks with shuffled questions and answers, a tight time limit, open-book questions that ask for application rather than recall. Honorlock deters; it does not prevent.

Tell students early and in writing

Put it in the syllabus, in the course Welcome or Start Here page, and in the exam's own instructions. Name the proctored exams, say what the student needs, and say how to get help. Put "(Honorlock)" at the end of each proctored quiz's title so students know before they click.

Syllabus statement you can copy

Honorlock will proctor the [midterm and final] in this course. Honorlock is an online proctoring service that lets you take your exam from home or any quiet place. You do not need to create an account or schedule an appointment. You need a computer (Windows, Mac or Chromebook; phones and tablets will not work), Google Chrome with the Honorlock extension, a working webcam and microphone, a photo ID, and a stable internet connection. Run the system check at honorlock.com/support before exam week.

When you start the exam you will take a photo of yourself and your ID. Honorlock records your webcam, microphone and screen during the exam, and it can detect searching for answers on another device. The recording is seen only by me and by Honorlock support staff. Honorlock flags moments for me to look at; it does not decide anything. Normal test behavior such as looking away to think or shifting in your seat is not cheating. I make the final judgment, and any concern about academic honesty goes through the college's regular process.

If you cannot use Honorlock (no webcam, no private space, assistive technology, or an approved accommodation), contact me as early as possible and we will arrange another way to take the exam. If you have trouble during the exam, use the Honorlock live chat (bottom right of the screen) first; it is available 24/7.

Enabling Honorlock on a quiz

Course Settings, then Navigation. Drag Honorlock into the visible list and Save. This is once per course.
Click Honorlock in the course menu. Authorize if prompted. You will see every quiz in the course.
Click Enable next to the quiz you want proctored. Honorlock turns the shield blue and writes an access code into the quiz settings.
Click into the quiz's Honorlock settings and choose the options below.

Do not touch the access code. Honorlock puts a code beginning HL_NO_EDIT_ into the quiz's "Require an access code" box. That code is how Canvas and Honorlock recognize each other. If you edit or delete it, nothing warns you: the quiz simply runs unproctored, or students are asked for a code they do not have and the exam ends the moment they press Start. This has happened at Gavilan more than once. If it has been changed, Disable and then Enable the quiz again in Honorlock to get a fresh code. Students never need to know the code; a student who is being asked for it is almost always not in Chrome with the extension.

Each term: when you copy a course, every quiz comes over with Honorlock off. Open Honorlock in the new course and enable the exams again (or use its Copy Settings option), then open each proctored quiz and confirm the shield is blue. Do not put emoji in a quiz title; Honorlock cannot launch those.

Key settings

Proctoring settings (what Honorlock records and blocks)

Record Webcam / Record Screen: the student's face and desktop for the whole session. Record Screen alone is a reasonable minimum.
Student Photo / Student ID: a selfie and a photo of an ID before starting. Honorlock checks the name against the roster. A student whose ID name differs from their iLearn name should tell you ahead of time (put a note in the Accommodations box).
Room Scan (Honorlock also calls it a workspace scan): leave this off. It asks a student to pan a camera around their private living space. A federal court ruled in 2022 that a required room scan in a student's home was an unreasonable search (Ogletree v. Cleveland State). The appeals court later vacated that ruling on procedural grounds, so it is not binding law, but the privacy problem it named is real, and as a public college we do not ask for it. It also fails students with low vision or limited mobility, and a toddler's picture book on the floor can look like an open textbook. If a licensing or certification exam genuinely requires it, say so in the syllabus and talk to Distance Education first.
Side camera: do not require it. It needs a second camera most students do not own.
Browser Guard: blocks other tabs and applications. Use it only when there is nothing outside the quiz a student could legitimately need. It conflicts with text-to-speech and other assistive software (see accommodations).
Disable Copy/Paste and Printing: stops exam content leaving the quiz. Low cost to students; worth turning on.
Allowed Site URLs: whitelist specific pages students may open (an e-textbook chapter, Desmos, an online calculator). Add each one, and put the same links in the quiz instructions.
Calculator: Honorlock can show a basic or scientific on-screen calculator. If students use a handheld one instead, allow it under Student Guidelines.
Simulated (not proctored): the full launch experience with nothing recorded or flagged. For practice only.

Student guidelines (what you allow, so it is not flagged)

These show to students when they launch and tell the AI what is permitted. Turn on whatever your exam allows:

Open book, notes, scratch paper (with any of these on, a student partly out of frame is not flagged)
Handheld calculator, headphones, hats
Restroom breaks (up to five minutes away without a flag)
Background noise, take the exam in a public place (a library or a shared household; with this on, a second face in frame is not flagged)

Use the Additional Instructions box to spell out your rules in plain words; students see it, and so do Honorlock's support staff. The more places your rules appear, the fewer flags you will have to sort through later.

Give students a practice run

Set up a short no-points practice quiz with Honorlock in the first two weeks, with the same settings you will use on the real exam (or use the Simulated setting). In Honorlock, the three-dot menu at top right has Add Practice Assessment, which builds one for you. Students install the extension, go through the photo and ID steps, and find out whether their computer works while nothing is at stake. Treat the practice quiz as required: it is how you find the students who need an alternative before the midterm, not during it.

What students need

A Windows, Mac or Chromebook computer. Phones, iPads and tablets cannot take the exam (a phone can be used to photograph the ID).
Google Chrome, up to date, with the Honorlock Chrome extension. Students who run many extensions can make a separate Chrome profile for exams.
A working webcam and microphone.
A connection of roughly 1 Mbps down and 2.5 Mbps up. Students can run the system check at honorlock.com/support; link it from your exam instructions.
A student without a computer: El Centro (Basic Needs) lends laptops to students, first come first served, including at the Hollister site.
On campus, at a high school, or on a managed network: Honorlock will not load unless its addresses are allowed through the firewall, and the extension has to be installed on each lab computer. Dual-enrollment students testing at their high school have hit this. The list to send to a network administrator is Honorlock's whitelisting requirements. If you plan to proctor in a Gavilan lab, ask IT before exam day.

Alternatives and accommodations

Extended time, extra attempts, and different dates are set in Canvas, not Honorlock (Classic: Moderate This Quiz; New Quizzes: Moderate). Honorlock follows the quiz's settings, so the student is simply proctored for the longer time.
Honorlock cannot exempt one student from a setting. If a setting conflicts with an approved accommodation (Browser Guard against a screen reader or text-to-speech, the webcam against a student with no camera), make a second copy of the quiz with those settings off, assign it to that student, and keep the main copy for everyone else. Or let the student take the quiz with Honorlock off entirely; that is a legitimate choice.
The Accommodations box in the Honorlock settings is read only by Honorlock support staff. Write the student's name and the settings to change, not the diagnosis: "M. Garcia: headphones and background noise allowed, restroom breaks allowed" rather than "M. Garcia has an AEC accommodation for anxiety." Tell the student the note is there; they may need to open the live chat at launch and ask support to apply it.
Accommodations generate flags. A reader in the room, a student talking to text-to-speech software, or someone taking a break will all be flagged. When you review, dismiss those.
Known accessibility limits (reported by Ohio State's evaluation): the photo-ID and room-scan steps are hard for students with motor disabilities or low vision; the interface does not magnify well past 200%; keyboard and screen-reader navigation of the launch steps is unreliable; hotkey detection blurs the screen when assistive-technology shortcuts are pressed. Students who rely on these tools should be offered another way to test from the start.
Where to send questions: the Accessible Education Center for anything about an approved accommodation, including whether an alternative exam can be proctored on campus; disted@gavilan.edu for Honorlock setup.
Dual-enrollment students are minors. Before requiring a recorded exam of a high-school student at home, check with the Dual Enrollment office.

Reviewing results

After the exam, open Honorlock in the course menu and click Results next to the quiz. Each session shows a start time, an end time and an incident level (green, yellow, red). View Session plays the webcam and the screen side by side with a timeline of flagged moments.

Watch every red session and spot-check yellow and green as time allows. For a high-stakes exam, consider watching all of them; the AI misses things as well as over-flags them.
Flags are suggestions. Looking away to think, a family member passing through, a dog, a screen reader talking: all of these flag. Dismiss what your guidelines or the student's accommodation allow.
Honorlock does not decide; you do. If you believe a violation occurred, note the timestamps, save the relevant clip, talk with the student, and follow the Student Code of Conduct process for academic dishonesty. A flag on its own is not evidence of misconduct.
If a session's video is missing, Honorlock has a "request footage" option in the session view; use it before concluding anything.

Where to get help

Students, during an exam: the Honorlock live chat (bottom right), 24/7, or honorlock.com/support.
Instructors: the chat inside Honorlock in your course; the Honorlock Help Center (setup, settings, reviewing results); and disted@gavilan.edu for anything Gavilan-specific.
Honorlock system status: status.honorlock.com.