UW-Madison Extends Criticized Online Exam Software Company Contract | higher education

Teachers can also customize Honorlock settings based on the type of test, she said. For example, instead of letting students use their own graphing calculator, which could be a potential cheat opportunity, teachers can choose a setting that puts scientific calculators on students’ screens.

Some honor lock features are not needed in a face-to-face test environment, such as: B. in a computer webcam that records students during the exam. But other settings can still be useful in physical classrooms, such as the “Disable Copy / Paste” and “Disable Printing” settings, which are intended to prevent exam questions from being passed on to future test takers.

Paige Leistner, a senior who took several Honorlock exams last year, said she was happy to hear that certain features like webcam monitoring are likely to be discontinued because those settings pose privacy issues for her. But she was surprised to hear that UW-Madison is renewing with the company.

“I find it kind of strange that when we’re in person we still use an online surveillance system,” she said. “It just seems like a waste of money.”

Students weren’t the only ones worried about Honorlock. More than 120 UW Madison employees signed a petition in March calling for changes after hearing the technology failed to recognize the faces of several darker-skinned students during exams.