Honorlock - Overview (UW-Madison)

This document provides an overview of Honorlock.

Select this link to list all Honorlock documents from the Learn@UW-Madison Knowledgebase at the bottom of this page.

Honor lock logo

What is Honorlock?

Honorlock is an automated proctoring solution that helps instructors foster academic integrity when providing remote assessments to students. Honorlock is designed for assessments built in the Canvas learning management system (LMS), particularly in Canvas Quizzes. Honorlock is available to all UW-Madison faculty, instructors and students in credit-based courses.

Please see DoIT’s Honorlock IT Service Page for a more detailed description of Honorlock.

Tool Functionality Details

Basic Functionality

  • Honorlock is designed for assessments building in the Canvas learning management system (LMS), particularly with Canvas Quizzes. 
  • An instructor can enable Honorlock for an existing Canvas quiz by selecting Honorlock from the left navigation bar in their Canvas Course. 
  • After selecting a quiz, instructors must choose Proctoring Settings, Allowed URLS, Student Guidelines, Accommodations, and Exam Visibility.
  • Options such as time limits, extended time, due dates, and availability dates are all controlled through Canvas quizzing, not settings within Honorlock.
  • Honorlock automatically generates an exam password or access code once enabled for a Canvas quiz. Instructors will see this access code when viewing the Canvas quiz settings, under Quiz Restrictions. Do not remove or alter the Honorlock-generated access code in the Canvas quiz settings, because if removed, students will be able to take their assessment without being proctored. , or will not be able to get into their exam at all. For more information visit Honorlock- Access Codes.
  • Proctoring results will be located in the Honorlock LTI within the instructors course. Instructors will locate the specific assessment and select the Results button to review results for academic integrity. Review the Honorlock document How to View Your Honorlock Results for more detailed steps.
    • Honorlock offers instructors Failsafe Images that collects a still image of a student’s webcam and screen every 10 seconds, in case a student had poor internet connectivity or outage during an exam.
    • Summary Reports of exam results are available once the exam’s due date has passed.
    • Instructors make the final decision about whether a flagged behavior during an exam should be handled as academic misconduct. If an instructor determines that misconduct has occurred they should follow the university protocol on misconduct.

Advanced Functionality

  • Honorlock’s Universal Third Party Integration allows students to test outside of Canvas, via a third-party publisher website, while their exam session is still being proctored. 
  • Honorlock’s Universal Third Party integration setup is required for any assessment tool that is not a Canvas quiz. This includes Atomic Assessment.
  • To do so, select Honorlock from the left navigation bar in their Canvas Course and then Register Third Party Exam from the menu represented as three dots on the upper right corner of the screen.
  • Similar to Honorlock’s functionality with Canvas quizzing, instructors must select Proctoring Settings, Student Guidelines, Accommodations, and Exam Visibility in addition to Exam Name, Exam Start, Exam End, Exam Password, Exam Platform, and Exam URL.
  • The Exam password field in Honorlock must match the password that you have used when setting up your third party exam. If the passwords do not match, students will not be able to start the exam.
  • Watch Using Honorlock for Third Party Exams (Faculty Video) from Honorlock for an overview of how to set up Honorlock proctored third party quizzes or visit Honorlock’s Create a Third Party Exam document.
  • See Honorlock - Integrations or contact learnuwsupport@wisc.edu to determine whether your third party integration is registered on campus.

Use Cases

The Provost's Office Student Learning Assessment website features important Honorlock usage guidance and information, such as use case scenarios, guidelines for exam proctoring, and FAQs.

Getting Started

For information on how to get started with Honorlock, see Honorlock - Getting Started.

Additional Resources