Responding to the endless complaints she witnessed in her class’ group chats, Brown wrote the petition to President Mark B. “Some people I know have a ton of family at home, so being in a room alone completely quiet is just not realistic,” she added. She says the testing requirements are impractical. “I took a test on Honorlock and my roommate, she wasn’t in the room, left and it heard the front door close and it stopped my test so that gave me a little bit of anxiety,” said Brown. Jazzi Brown is a marketing student at FIU, and when remote learning began last spring she quickly noticed a problem in the way tests were being conducted. “I feel like it’s really affecting their abilities to give a really good outcome to their professors on their grades, and on testing, just because of their environment,” said Magee. Honorlock requires students to be alone in the room for the entire duration of the test, a challenge for those living with large families.
HONOR LOCK FULL
In addition to conducting a full 360-degree scan of your testing location, a microphone records the surrounding audio while a webcam tracks the frequency of eye movements.Ī student survey Magee conducted, and cited in the Lockdown Browser Act, found that given the choice, FIU students prefer Lockdown Browser to Honorlock by a 13-1 margin, a majority in favor of an alternative browser to Honorlock. But unlike Honorlock, it does not have the extensive security measures and AI features students believe violate their privacy. Lockdown browser is also a proctoring service which ensures students abide by test taking protocols even in remote circumstances. “SGA sponsors that we want professors and students to stop using Honorlock for this semester and push it back to next spring and for the alternatives, we gave either Lockdown Browser or Zoom, ” said Magee.
Written by SGC-MMC Lower Division Senator James Magee, the Lockdown Browser Act does not explicitly propose a ban on Honorlock as the student petition called for, but rather it advocates for Honorlock’s temporary replacement with programs such as Lockdown Browser or Zoom. Honorlock is a Google Chrome extension used in FIU courses to conduct virtual exams with integrity, as a result of transitioning to remote learning last spring semester due to COVID-19.