This teaching and learning talk on contract cheating, presented at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, explored the world where students are paying other people to have their work completed for them. The talk considers the methods that students can use to outsource work and employ a ghostwriter. Indicative examples, showing the changing landscape of student cheating, are provided. The talk concludes with recommendations, including the suggestion that students should be encouraged and inspired to engage with producing their own original work.

1. 1#contractcheating
Contract Cheating – Exploring
The Online Market For Original
Student Work
Dr. Thomas Lancaster
University of Wolverhampton Lunchtime Seminar
Wednesday, 27 January 2016

2. 2#contractcheating
Background To The Seminar

3. 3#contractcheating
What’s Being Covered Today?
Why contract cheating is an issue – and why universities need to be
vigilant in removing the opportunities for students to cheat
The online services that students are using to have their assessed work
completed for them
Examples of visible student requests to outsource work across multiple
disciplines, illustrating developments within our wider research
Practical steps that academics can take to reduce the likelihood and
impact of contract cheating in their modules

4. 4#contractcheating
Discussion Welcome!
Twitter –
@DrLancaster
Live – Feel free to join in and share ideas
#contractcheating

5. 5#contractcheating
Dr. Thomas Lancaster
Senior Lecturer in Computing at Birmingham
City University, with specialism in Computer
Science
Active researcher into plagiarism and
student cheating since 2000
Recognised by the Higher Education
Academy as a Senior Fellow
Some recent areas of focus have included
“paid for” work within healthcare subjects
and exam cheating
Currently examining the marketing of
cheating opportunities and the workers who
help students to gain undue qualifications

6. 6#contractcheating
With Grateful Acknowledgement
To My Colleague “Detective Bob”
Robert Clarke Educational Consultant and
Researcher at SCL
Current Visiting Lecturer at
Birmingham City University
Former Principal Lecturer with 30
years teaching experience
Has collected over 30,000 attempts
made by students to outsource their
work
Has helped to reunite many “lost”
assignment briefs with their owners

7. 7#contractcheating
The Online Market For
Original Student Work

8. 8#contractcheating
buy nursing essay
15,300,000 results – as of January 2016

9. 9#contractcheating

10. 10#contractcheating
buy law essay
56,600,000 results – as of January 2016

11. 11#contractcheating

12. 12#contractcheating
Contract Cheating
Students who are using the online market for student
work are committing contract cheating
Contract cheating happens when a student make use of
a third party or other service to produce an original
piece of assessed work which they then submit as if
they had created it
this will not usually be detected as unoriginal through Turnitin

13. 13#contractcheating
Which Parties Are Concerned
About Contract Cheating?
Parties and
Players
Teaching
Staff
Students
Professional
Bodies
Solution
Providers
Internet
Detectives
Administrative
Staff
Software
Providers Government
Agencies

14. 14#contractcheating
Don’t Forget the Media!

15. 15#contractcheating
“Student Cheating Crisis”
The Times – Saturday January 2, 2016
50,000 students from 129 UK universities
caught cheating in the past three years,
according to a Freedom of Information Act
request.
The top 5 institutions for 2012-2015 were:
1. Kent
2. Westminster
3. East London
4. Sheffield Hallam
5. Oxford Brookes

16. 16#contractcheating
Aside – Has Cheating Decreased?
The Independent on Sunday 11 March 2012 found that 45,000
students at 80 institutions had been found to have cheated in the
previous three years
(188 per institution per year then, 129 per institution per year now).
The top 5 institutions for 2010-2011 were:
1. Greenwich
2. London Metropolitan
3. Sheffield Hallam
4. Leeds Metropolitan
5. Wolverhampton

17. 17#contractcheating
Forced Changed Practice In Australia
(ongoing since late 2014)
MyMaster, (former) Australian based essay
writing service – aimed at a Chinese audience
Records from the service and details of work
they had completed became exposed
Generated over $160,000 (AUD) in 2014 –
including over 700 deposits to MyMaster bank
account
Has prompted new academic integrity policies
and processes - see Higher Education
Standards Framework (Threshold Standards)
2015 – and also led to funding opportunities
Video still from Sydney Morning Herald feature

18. 18#contractcheating
BBC Fake Britain
2000 word “essay”
(computing literature
review)
2:1 standard requested
Needed in a week
(received in three days)
£275
Awarded a mark of 65%
November 2015

19. 19#contractcheating
Introducing Our Research Into
Contract Cheating

20. 20#contractcheating
The Hidden World Of Contract
Cheating
Most essay writing services keep their contents
private
Usually students pay a set price per “page” and do not
know who their writer is
As researchers, we cannot easily observe what is going
on inside the sites

21. 21#contractcheating
Observable Sites
We can observe the interactions on agency web
sites
People post the work that they want completed
and solicit bids to have this work completed for
them
Student work may or may not be an important part of
the business model for the agency site

22. 22#contractcheating
Cheating Can Become A Habit
Our first study, published in 2006, found that the “average”
student using RentACoder.com had already posted between
4 and 7 assignments online at the time we did the study
Some students now never have their work attributed if it cannot
be traced to an institution
(RentACoder since renamed and taken over by
Freelancer.com – which is the main source for our current
investigations)
Clarke, R and Lancaster, T (2006). Eliminating The Successor To Plagiarism? Identifying The Usage Of Contract Cheating Sites; 2nd Plagiarism:
Prevention, Practice and Policy Conference 2006 - Newcastle, UK, June 2006.

23. 23#contractcheating
EssayBay Study Of 627
Assignment Requests
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
R European Langs, Lit & related
P Mass Comms and Documentation
W Creative Arts & Design
F Physical Sciences
K Architecture,Build & Plan
H Engineering
M Law
G Mathematical & Comp Sci
Q Linguistics, Classics & related
C Biological Sciences
X Education
B Subjects allied to Medicine
V Hist & Philosophical studies
L Social Studies
N Business & Admin studies
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2012), Dealing with Contract Cheating: A Question of Attribution, 1st HEA STEM Conference
April 2012, London, United Kingdom
Sample of 627 “all
subject” cases collected
on EssayBay over 5
months in 2010, and
manually classified by
UCAS Subject Category
EssayBay no longer
operational, but this is
an example of an
agency site exclusively
set up for student
assignments

24. 24#contractcheating
January 2016
Recently, there has
been a blurring
between traditional
essay writing services
and agency web sites

25. 25#contractcheating
Some Examples Of Requests
Observed On Freelancer.com

26. 26#contractcheating
Systems Engineering
Technologies
6CC002 Systems Engineering Technologies
Mini-Project1 (USB)
You will need to complete the workshop and submit report to WOLF topic
along with your source code. You also need demo it on workshop session. It
will be added into your final profile (20%).
The demo deadline is 21th/Jan/2016. The report submission deadline for
mini-Project is 14th/Jan/2016. Each member contribution to the project
should be clearly identified in the report. The group mark will be moderated
for each individual on the basis of contribution about each individual.
Freelancer 9339286
Jan 2016 UK
£20 -
£250project
budget range

27. 27#contractcheating
Dissertation
“projects spread is a spread that can make a choice for what
project i can choose”
Freelancer 8675590
Oct 2015 "Cyprus
Wolverhampton"
€900
(posted Tue, 30 Jun 2015)
UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON
Faculty of Science and Engineering
6CC009 – Advanced Networks
RESIT Coursework Assessment 2014-15
(posted Tue, 05 May 2015)
UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON
FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
UNDERGRADUATE COMPUTING SUBJECT
6CI007 DATABASE SERVER MANAGEMENT
Also
posted

28. 28#contractcheating
Experimental Pharamacology
5PY016 Experimental Pharmacology
Practical 1: Introduction to the isolated tissue preparation
Introduction Pieces of tissue isolated from any animal,
maintained in an aerated physiological solution at body
temperature, will continue to respond in an appropriate manner
to chemical, electrical or mechanical stimuli. These responses,
depending on the tissue selected will continue for many hours
and provide an excellent test system for the application of many
drugs.
Freelancer 7255662
Mar 2015
“Manchester, UK”
£154
known "third-party
subcontractor"

29. 29#contractcheating
Corporate Governance in
International Context
For this assignment, you are asked to conduct an empirical analysis on the
link between board structure & composition, and firm performance, using a
sample of UK listed companies.
You are asked to work in teams of 4-5. Each team must select a sample of 30
UK listed companies from Morningstar Company Intelligence (available under
Learning Centre, electronic databases). For each of the companies, you are
asked to collate data for the following variables and input these into SPSS:
1) Company size: Turnover, number of employees,
2) Company performance: ROCE, EPS, degree of internationalisation (%
turnover derived from non-UK activities - from company facts report)
Freelancer 6109956
June 2014
“Pakistan”
$226
known "third-party
subcontractor"
cancelled

30. 30#contractcheating
Engineering and
Micro-electronics
5ET003 Assignment 2
Module: Professional Engineering and the Microelectronics
Assignment 2: Microelectronics
Assignment Title:
Embedded Systems Design and Development- Completing the design and
development of an embedded system that uses PIC 16f88 microcontroller.
Assignment brief:
This assignment is concerned with the design and development of an embedded
system using PIC16f88 microcontroller. It uses a fictitious case that proposes the
design of an embedded system for monitoring and supervisory control of a
greenhouse. Students should use the knowledge and skills they have gained in the
Microelectronics module to complete the development of the proposed embedded
system.
Freelancer 5237806
Dec 2013
“Ukraine”
$927
known "third-party
subcontractor"
cancelled

31. 31#contractcheating
MBA assignment
Module Title: Accounting for Business Block 1
Subject Area: Accounting and Financial Management
Assessment Title: Company Analysis
Assignment Brief/Task
You are to select a PLC that has a listing on the stock exchange and agree this
with the module tutor. The assignment is in two parts. The first part requires you
to produce an analysis of the company’s performance over the last two years
from a prospective investors’ point of view (which should include investor ratios
and non-financial information ).
THIS WILL BE CHECKED FOR PLAGIARISM, HENCE THE ASSIGNMENT NEEDS TO
CLEAR TURNITIN. Original assignment is attached.
Freelancer 4335219
Mar 2013
“Sri Lanka”
$100
known "third-party
subcontractor"
Closed

32. 32#contractcheating
Civil Engineering
Module Title: Commercial Management (Civils)
Assessment 1 - Portfolio
Managed Motorways are a new, technology driven approach to the use of our
motorways.
Managed Motorways:
Help motorists make their journeys more safely and reliably • Support economic
growth, by relieving congestion • Provide additional road capacity where
needed • Cost less during construction • And have less impact on the
environment than conventional motorway widening schemes Highways Agency
(2011).
Freelancer 5470276
Feb 2014
“Salford” UK
$100
known "third-party
subcontractor"

33. 33#contractcheating
Interesting Development
Growth of third-party subcontractors, obtaining work
elsewhere, then outsourcing it themselves through
Freelancer.com

34. 34#contractcheating
Possible Solutions

35. 35#contractcheating
Student Professionalism
Help students to understand the need for assessment
Instil an interest in the subject beyond assessment
Educate students about plagiarism, contract cheating and
professional ethics
Link the assessment to employability – getting (and
keeping) a job
Involve students in the design of assessment
Use teamwork, where students cannot simply work on a
task alone

36. 36#contractcheating
Use Supervised Assessments
(these do not have to be traditional written
examinations)
Workplace simulations
Practical tests
Tests using coursework as a base
Supervised reflection
Spoken examinations
Cloze test (word replacement)

37. 37#contractcheating
Continue Good Practice For
Assessment Design
Write fresh assessment briefs each time
Incorporate localised knowledge
Use Turnitin (for its factor of cheating
deterrence)
Check if already prepared solutions can be easily
accessed on the Internet
Monitor agency sites for assignment posts

38. 38#contractcheating
Look For Signs Of Ghostwriters
Made up personal experiences – or those that do
not match the student
Documents that are formatted and referenced
perfectly
Extra low Turnitin scores
A focus on information from paper abstracts, or
other freely available sources
US (instead of UK) English, international nursing
practices and other non-localised examples

39. 39#contractcheating
Personal Communication From A US
Writer For An Essay Company
(Used With Permission)
Feedback given by the student’s professor on the first draft:
“...as I read through your paper I was concerned with your wording use
(i.e. parse, utilitarian, implicitly, semantics, ,etc.). Referring to your
other assignment submissions, such wording use was surprisingly
inconsistent from your other submissions. Thus, I look forward to such
conscious use of wording in all of the rest of the assignments that you
submit during this course. Also, while the only citation method that has
been discussed throughout this class has been MLA, I found it quite
interesting that your paper -- except for a few instances -- used what
appears to be more of an APA style formatting. This APA style extends
to some of your Works Cited listings as well.”

40. 40#contractcheating
The Solution?
“The paper I edited was a very verbose analysis of why
students cheat, concluding rather ambiguously but
leaning toward cheating being wrong. I got rid of
anything with more than two syllables and concluded
that cheating was OK.”

41. 41#contractcheating
Final Question

42. 42#contractcheating
But, Do UK Universities Really
Want To Know?
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3810047
January 8 2016

43. 43#contractcheating
Further Resources

44. 44#contractcheating
Selected References For Our
Contract Cheating Work
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2015), Contract Cheating – The Outsourcing Of Assessed Student Work, in Handbook of Academic Integrity, Bretag, T. (editor): SpringerReference.
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2015),The Implications of Plagiarism and Contract Cheating for the Assessment of Database Modules. 13th International Workshop on Teaching,
Learning and Assessment of Databases (TLAD 2015), Birmingham, UK, July 2015.
Hersey, C. and Lancaster, T. (2015), The Online Industry of Paper Mills, Contract Cheating Services, and Auction Sites, Clute Institute International Education Conference, London,
June 2015.
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2014), An Observational Analysis Of The Range And Extent Of Contract Cheating From Online Courses Found On Agency Websites; 8th International
Conference on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems (CISIS 2014), Birmingham City University, UK, July 2014.
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2014), An Initial Analysis Of The Contextual Information Available Within Auction Posts On Contract Cheating Agency Websites, 28th IEEE
International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications, University of Victoria, May 2014
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2014), Using Turnitin As A Tool For Attribution In Cases Of Contract Cheating; 3rd Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, April 2014.
Clarke, R. and Lancaster, T. (2013). Commercial Aspects Of Contract Cheating; 8th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, University of
Kent, Canterbury, UK, July 2013.
Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2012). Dealing With Contract Cheating: A Question Of Attribution; 1st Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics, Imperial College, London, April 2012.
Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2010). Staff-Led Individualised Assessment – A Case Study; 11th Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Information and Computer Sciences,
Durham University, August 2010.
Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2008). How to Succeed at Cheating Without Really Trying: Five Top Tips for Successful Cheating; 9th Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in
Information and Computer Sciences, Liverpool Hope University, August 2008.
Clarke, R, and Lancaster, T (2007). Establishing a Systematic Six-Stage Process for Detecting Contract Cheating; The Second International Conference on Pervasive Computing and
Applications, Birmingham City University, July 2007.
Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2007). Assessing Contract Cheating Through Auction Sites – A Computing Perspective; 8th Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in
Information and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, August 2007.
Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2007) The Phenomena of Contract Cheating, in Student Plagiarism in an Online World: Problems and solutions, Roberts, T. S. (editor), Hershey,
Pennsylvania, USA: Idea Group Inc.
Clarke, R and Lancaster, T (2006). Eliminating The Successor To Plagiarism? Identifying The Usage Of Contract Cheating Sites; 2nd Plagiarism: Prevention, Practice and Policy
Conference 2006 - Newcastle, UK, June 2006.

45. 45#contractcheating
Upcoming Research Presentation
Contract Cheating And Academic Misconduct In
Examinations And Tests
Higher Education Academy STEM Conference 2016
28-29 January 2016
East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham

46. 46#contractcheating
My Contact Details
Thomas Lancaster
Email: thomas.lancaster@bcu.ac.uk
Website: http://thomaslancaster.co.uk
Blog: http://thomaslancaster.co.uk/blog
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/thomaslancaster
Twitter: @DrLancaster

47. 47#contractcheating
Contract Cheating Resources
General Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_cheating
http://contractcheating.com
Contract Cheating Special Interest Group (originally supported by the
Higher Education Academy):
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-
bin/webadmin?A0=CONTRACTCHEATING
Slides Available At:
http://www.slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster