Ocean County College complies with a United States federal statute that requires colleges and universities to verify the identities of their online students through appropriate means. One of the ways in which we do this is through the use of an online proctoring service.

Online proctoring permits us to do the following:

1. Ensure academic integrity
2. Ensure that students are truly learning!
3. Protect the earned value of grades and credits
4. Increase the transferability of our online courses to four-year universities (Some universities reject online courses that have no proctoring)
5. Ensure the reputation of the institution.
6. Retain institutional accreditation
7. Maintains eligibility to receive financial aid for those who qualify.

• Our use of online proctoring is in full compliance with federal FERPA laws that protect student privacy. Here are links to three resources that explain the ways in which HonorLock Proctoring adheres to privacy laws:
  • Honorlock Student Privacy FAQ
  • HonorLock Privacy Statement
  • https://honorlock.com/ferpa/

Ocean County College’s Disability Services Office offers accommodations to students who meet the legal requirements through the Americans with Disability Act or applicable sections of the Rehabilitation Act. If you are eligible for accommodations, a staff member from Disability Services will create a plan that addresses your needs.

Proctoring is not optional. All students are required to ensure that their computer and Internet connectivity meet HonorLock’s system requirements. Students who do not complete assessments through required proctoring are subject to failing their test or quiz. Without completing the Orientation Quiz, students cannot access the course content.

Students must abide by Academic Integrity Policy 5180, including proctored sessions. Students who exit the Honorlock service before completing their proctored assessment, or turn off their webcams or microphones, may be flagged for academic dishonesty and sanctioned accordingly.  Students may access the Academic Integrity Policy 5180 here.

Honorlock Universal Third-Party Integration allows you to test outside of Canvas, via a third-party publisher website, while your session is still being proctored. Examples of third-party publishes include: Cengage, McGraw Hill, Pearson, and Knewton Alta. This means that your course proctors exams taken in a third-party publisher platform. More details regarding proctoring in your course can be found in the course syllabus.

See an example below of how to take an exam with a third-party provider that requires a password.

All students will be proctored at least once per online course during the required Get Starting Module: Orientation Quiz. The number of additional proctored assessments varies by course. Please refer to the Honorlock Proctoring Statement in the course syllabus to see a list of proctored assessments.

OCC and Honorlock™ acknowledge the current litigation that has taken place in Ohio, and Honorlock™ maintains that it was not and is not, currently connected with this case. The reason Honorlock™ was included in the case was because they were listed on Cleveland State University’s “Frequently Asked Questions” page.  There has been no final ruling regarding the room scans and exam-proctoring software. The summary judgment, in this case, is not national in scope. Therefore, it does not include the State of New Jersey. Out of an abundance of caution, Ocean County College has removed the Room Scan toggle from the Honorlock™ settings, ensuring that this feature is no longer used during exam administration. 

Honorlock™ software does not violate an individual’s Fourth Amendment Rights. The purpose of Honorlock™ is to provide student authentication for the online class, which is an accreditation mandate. Prior to an assessment, students are prompted to install a secure extension to complete the assessment. Ocean County College maintains ownership of the data collected, and the data is removed according to their contractual agreement with Honorlock™. 

Installation of the Honorlock™ Chrome extension can be completed just before starting an exam, and students are encouraged to remove the extension immediately after an exam. 

When students install the Chrome extension, they are presented with a consent screen that displays a set of permissions required by the extension. These permissions are determined by the Google Chrome application programming interfaces (APIs) used by the extension. Honorlock™ has carefully selected the APIs to perform their core function. See Google’s reference site for more information.

Honorlock™ does not sell personally identifiable information (PII). 

Honorlock™ has formally agreed with Ocean County College to provide online proctoring services. This agreement includes specific legal requirements for the security and privacy of student information.  

All data collected and stored on behalf of Ocean County College is encrypted within the Honorlock™ private cloud-based data centers. These data centers are provided by Amazon AWS and are located in the United States. 

As is detailed in the Master Service Agreement between Honorlock™ and Ocean County College, Honorlock™ is not permitted to use confidential information for any purpose except to perform its core functionality. Honorlock™ agrees that it shall not re-disclose personally identifiable information that it receives.

Ocean County College does not attempt to coerce students into accepting any invasion of privacy. All OCC students are proctored while taking an assessment, regardless of the modality. Online students use Honorlock™, and traditional face-to-face students are proctored by the faculty in person.  

Please see Honorlock’s updates regarding systems running MacOS versions:

• 10.15 or later
• 12.3 or later