Academic Fraud, Corruption, and Implications for Credential Assessment

Academic Fraud, Corruption, and
Implications for Credential Assessment
WENR Report

Introduction
• In October of 2017, universities around the
world participated in the second annual
“international day of action against contract
cheating” sponsored by the “International
Center for Academic Integrity.”
• The event reflected growing concern about an
increase in educational fraud, which threatens
to devalue higher education and undermine
academic integrity, as well as harm students and
institutional reputations alike.

International Center for Academic Integrity

Introduction
• Fraud and corruption in education exist in
various forms beyond contract-cheating.
• Its global manifestations include
• diploma mills and the counterfeiting of
academic documents, as well as bribery to
ensure the licensing of academic institutions,
the hiring of academic staff, the passing of
examinations, admission into education
programs and the award of degrees.

Fraud And Corruption In Education

Introduction
• The problem is an urgent one. From an institutional
perspective, the effect of failure to address fraud and
corrupt practices are sometimes severe.
• The most prominent example may be the University of
Wales, which was abolished in 2011 because it ran
degree validation programs with dubious or downright
illegal overseas partner institutions
• Dickinson State University in North Dakota was placed
on notice by its accreditor, the Higher Learning
Commission after it came out that the university had been
graduating international students from to-up programs with
Chinese and Russian partner institutions without
authenticated documents or appropriate academic
prerequisites.

Introduction
• Reputational damage is another risk of insufficient
controls for vetting students’ qualifications. Western
Kentucky University, for instance, was in 2016 forced to
suspend almost half of its international graduate students
recruited by an India-based agent – an episode documented
by the New York Times.
• After admission offers were made, it turned out that the
students did not meet admission standards and were
academically unfit, despite remedial assistance.
• The institution accrued both real and opportunity costs,
and loss of tuition revenues, and risked a deterioration
of educational quality. Just as devastating was the impact
on the students who were in danger of losing their visas and
investments into education abroad.

Indian Students Lured by Recruiters Asked to
Leave University

Introduction
• For private companies and the government,
the employment of individuals with bogus
credentials can be a public relations fiasco.
And yet, accounts of persons being employed
in critical positions based on fake degrees
surface regularly in the news, be it at the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security or the
National Nuclear Security Administration.

What can academic institutions and
others do to guard against fraud?
• At the most basic level, the solution involves
robust processes for vetting student
qualifications.
• But just as important is understanding the
size and scope of the problem, its variations,
and the hotspots where it occurs.
• Lasting solutions demand both vigilance and
creativity on the part of admissions personnel,
institutions, governments, and others.

Scoping the Problem
• There’s little doubt that the incidence of
academic fraud and corruption is growing
worldwide.
• Advances in technology, the rapid growth of
international student mobility, and the
globalization and commodification of
education have made fraudulent academic
activity more routine while rendering
detection more difficult.

Scoping the Problem
• In some countries, the twin problems of academic fraud and
corruption can be extreme.
• The enormous increase in outbound mobility from China in
recent years, for example, has created a perfect breeding ground
for academic fraud.
• Zinch in 2010 estimated that “90 percent of recommendation
letters from Chinese students are fake, 70 percent of college
application essays are not written by the students, and half of all
high school transcripts are falsified.”
• Some U.S. colleges have reported similar problems with large
numbers of applicants from Nigeria applying with identical
transcripts and letters of recommendation.

Problems Of Academic Fraud And
Corruption Can Be Extreme.

Scoping the Problem
• Admissions fraud: A 2007 survey of
students from Eastern European countries
found that 18 to 20 percent of “students in
Bulgaria, Croatia, and Serbia and 40 percent of
students in Moldova reported that they had
used some illegal method to gain admission
to their university.”

Admissions fraud
• In India, authorities in 2015 busted a crime ring in
the state of Madhya Pradesh led by an assistant
professor in cahoots with officials from the
examinations board Vyapam that helped possibly
more than 2,000 students get admitted into medical
school by unlawful means.
• The outfit sold examination questions, facilitated
“grade improvements,” and provided student
impersonators to take admissions tests in exchange
for more than USD $15,000 per student.

Vyapam that helped possibly more than 2,000
students get admitted into medical school by
unlawful means

Scoping the Problem
• Bribery: Similar amounts may be paid for admission
into universities in Russia, where bribery in education
is endemic, and up to 50 percent of students are said
to experience corruption in their academic careers.
• In one high-profile example, a lecturer at the
distinguished Moscow State University was in 2010
caught accepting a bribe of €35,000 (USD $41,300) for
admission. The nouveau rich in China, on the other
hand, may in some instances pay Illegal “admission
fees” of up to USD $130,000 for acceptance at
prestigious universities.

Scoping the Problem
• Similar problems exist in higher education: in Kenya, for
instance, recent legislation required members of parliament to
hold a university degree. The law was eventually scrapped, but
it sent panicked politicians rushing to obtain degrees. Some
politicians simply submitted forged credentials.
• In other cases, corrupt university officials graduated prominent, if
often academically unqualified, students from abbreviated or non-
existent study programs.
• When A Kenyan government audit charged universities with the
suspect issuance of degree certificates and the scandal came out,
a number of universities were in 2017 forced to revoke
illegitimate degrees awarded to elected politicians the award of
degrees without appropriate coursework.

In Kenya, For Instance, Recent Legislation Required
Members Of Parliament To Hold A University Degree

Scoping the Problem
• In Uganda, the government investigated Busoga
University in 2016 for issuing more than 1,000
“premium-tuition” degrees to South Sudanese
students, many of them military officers flocking to
Uganda for easy degrees to secure government
positions back home.
• The university allegedly admitted students without
adequate academic prerequisites and graduated
them from “abbreviated” two-month degree
programs. In 2017, Uganda arrested 88 staff members
at Makerere University for corruption in connection
with the alteration of student grades and the issuance of
fraudulent degrees.

University Allegedly Admitted Students
Without Adequate Academic Prerequisites

Scoping the Problem
• Examinations fraud: News of leaked exam
questions and other forms of test-related
fraud are commonplace in many countries.

Scoping the Problem
• When the Cambodian government in 2014
cracked down on the leaking of high school
exam questions by corrupt educators, the pass
rate plunged to only 26 percent, down from 87
percent in the previous year.
• In Nigeria, the West African Examination Council
(WAEC) in 2012 annulled the graduation exam
results of 6.6 percent of all participating
students due to “examination malpractices” –
an incident that led to the de-certification of
113 corruption-plagued schools.

Cambodian government in 2014 cracked down on the leaking of high
school exam questions by corrupt educators, the pass rate plunged to only
26 percent, down from 87 percent in the previous year.

Scoping the Problem
• In Sierra Leone, examinations fraud is reportedly a lucrative
business for organized crime groups – three WAEC examiners
were arrested on corruption charges just in June of 2017.
• Rampant fraud in Egypt, meanwhile, has caused the government to
transport national high school exam questions in a military
helicopter under guard of the Egyptian army.
• In China, hired test-takers – so-called “gunmen” – are a
common problem for administrators of the country’s
competitive university entrance exams an issue that led to
security measures like the installation of iris and fingerprint
scanners at testing centers.
• To curtail cheating on the exams, the government recently even
started to deploy drones to surveil test takers, and since 2016
threatens cheaters with up to 7 years of jail time.

In China, hired test-takers – so-called “gunmen” –
are a common problem for administrators

Essay Mills and Plagiarism
• The ghost-writing of academic works is a thriving
racket alongside other forms of academic fraud like
dissertation plagiarism.
• Garden variety plagiarism and the submission of term
papers, theses, and dissertations written by ghostwriters
– so-called contract cheating – have been on the rise in
recent years.
• The ghost-writing industry is thriving with writing
assignments of all kinds readily commissionable
online. In the UK alone, more than 20,000 students
are said to have purchased writing assignment from
essay mills in 2016.

• According to some estimates, there are
currently more than 1,000 English-language
essay mill sites on the web, taking in tens of
millions of dollars annually. The number of
such “contract-written” assignments
submitted by students worldwide is
impossible to quantify.

• In Russia, high-level plagiarism is relatively
common among civil servants and
politicians. Critics describe “an epidemic of
faked dissertations, cooked up through
plagiarism and other unethical means and
pumped out with the help of corrupt
committees that rubber-stamp the bogus
work.” A 2015 study found that one in nine
politicians in the lower house of the Russian
parliament had a plagiarized or fake degree.

• Fabricated Research: A related problem is the
fabrication of scientific journal papers, a
phenomenon that tends to be prominent in
countries where scholars receive monetary
incentives to publish in journals.
• This has motivated some dishonest scholars to
submit articles based on cooked-up research and
fake peer reviews. In 2017, Quartz reported that
more than 50 percent of all articles retracted
by scientific journals for peer review concerns
worldwide were submitted by Chinese authors.

• Shadowy services now provide fake peer reviews on demand.
• China’s Wuhan University has estimated that the country’s
“industry of plagiarism, invented research and fake journal in
2009 was worth USD $150 million, a fivefold increase on just
two years earlier.”
• Pakistan has a similar academic incentive system and
similar problems. Prominent Pakistani academic Pervez
Hoodbhoy claims that academia in the country is currently
controlled by a “professor mafia“ running publication
“factories” that produce research papers resembling
“actual research so disguised that you don’t get caught.”
More than 100 doctoral programs were recently suspended by
Pakistani authorities due to quality problems.

Prominent Pakistani academic Pervez Hoodbhoy claims that
academia in the country is currently controlled by a
“professor mafia

• Forged degrees: Perhaps the crudest form of academic
fraud is the counterfeiting or purchasing of downright
forged degrees.
• In one recent episode, Indian authorities in 2017 charged
a man with the sale 2,000 forged degrees in Bangalore, a
city in which no less than 40,000 people are said to have
gained employment on the basis of fake credentials,
according to police estimates.
• Degree shops have recently also sprung up on the on the
Syrian-Turkish border
• In Manila, meanwhile, crude forgeries of academic
documents can be openly purchased for a few dollars
from hole-in-the-wall shops.

• Corrupt Agents: There are an estimated 20,000
recruitment agencies worldwide funneling students
to countries like Australia, the U.K., and, in recent
years, the U.S., where about 30 percent of
universities are said to be using agents for
undergraduate admissions.
• Reputable agents serve a critical role in student
recruitment and provide valuable services to
students. But agents can be vulnerable to corruption,
especially since they are gatekeepers whose revenues
depend on student headcounts.

Corruption in the Accreditation of
Academic Institutions
• Corruption in the accreditation and licensing
of institutions may allow providers of sub-
standard quality to operate.
• In post-Communist Georgia, for instance, a
country that merely had 26 public universities
at the beginning of the 2000s, 209 licenses were
given to new private providers in 2002 alone.
The licenses were granted in a no transparent
process characterized by wide-spread bribery and
swept in a sizeable number of low-quality
providers.

• Universities also tried to ensure
accreditation by employing “ghost
professors” to meet lecturer quotas, forging
inventories and bribing site inspectors. In
India, meanwhile, medical education has
recently been tainted by rampant fraud and
the fact that many medical colleges are run
by profit-seeking politicians.

Corruption in the Accreditation of Academic
Institutions
• According to Reuters, “recruiting companies
routinely provide medical colleges with
doctors to pose as full-time faculty members
to pass government inspections.” The former
president of the Medical Council of India, a
body charged with overseeing medical
education, was arrested in 2010 for seeking
bribes to recommend higher enrolment quotas
at a private medical college.

Diploma Mills
• On rare occasions, corruption in accreditation may
even open a window for diploma mills to gain a
mantle of legitimacy, at least on the internet, where
diploma mills hunt for customers.
• In Pakistan, an even bigger diploma mill operation
run by a company named “Exact” operated without
impunity for ten years, possibly taking in USD $140
million, until the New York Times exposed the scam.
While Exact was not licensed as an academic institution
and no government corruption has been alleged, experts
consider the web of more than 370 diploma mills run
by Exact the largest degree scam in history.

Recommendations for Safeguarding
against Fraud
• The spread of academic fraud poses yet
another challenge for universities,
immigration authorities, and employers
when assessing foreign credentials. How can
institutions and others identify academic
fraud that originates in unfamiliar foreign
education systems? Depending on the issue
in play, adopting certain safeguards offers
at least some protection.

Strong Authentication and Verification
Procedures
• The most essential defences against
fraudulent documents are strong
authentication and verification procedures.
Forged credentials may on occasion be
spotted upon inspection of the physical
documents, but the growing sophistication
of forgeries and inside jobs necessitate more
robust verification procedures.

Strong Authentication and
Verification Procedures

Strong Authentication and Verification
Procedures
• In high-risk countries, it is prudent to verify documents
with the issuing institutions or government bodies. While
not always foolproof in all countries, governments that are
signatory to the “Hague apostle convention” officially certify
academic documents with an apostle.
• Online verification is also becoming increasingly common,
usually using a unique pin code to check against a
database, a method used by the WAEC.
• The government of Malaysia, a country with a fake Ph.D.
problem, just launched an online database for doctoral degrees.
• Dissertations can often also be referenced in the online
library cataloge of universities.

Safeguards against Corrupt Recruitment
Agents and International Admissions Fraud
• When using recruitment agents, follow the
guidelines put forward by institutions like the
“American International Recruitment
Council,” NACAC, the Australian government or
the British Council.
• These include the careful vetting of agents to
ensure that they have a proven track record in
working with reputable institutions, are
regarded as reliable by other universities, are
appropriately licensed, maintain adequate
staffing, and use ethical recruitment methods.

• Before setting up contracts, it is advisable to
inspect agency offices on-site, and include
clearly defined quality and admissions
standards in written agreements.
• It is a good idea to provide continued
oversight and training and to rely on a
number of trusted agents, rather than a
multitude of unproven agencies.

Safeguards against Corrupt Recruitment Agents and
International Admissions Fraud
• It may also be helpful to strengthen
admissions procedures with face-to-face
interviews (whether in person or via Skype)
to assess applicants and detect potential fraud.
• The admissions platform Kira Talent, for
instance, combines written assessments with
video interviews.

Detecting and Preventing Plagiarism
• In-depth review of written works can help
reveal plagiarism, but is not always a practical
solution, given the high volume of essays that
universities have to assess.
• A common defence against plagiarism,
therefore, is the use of anti-plagiarism software
like “iThenticate,” which can detect at least the
most blatant forms of plagiarism by comparing
text with other publications on the internet.

• Australia’s Tertiary Education Quality and
Standards Agency also recommends
combating plagiarism and contract cheating
by fostering a culture of academic integrity
at institutions, including the training of staff,
information campaigns for students,
transparent policies and strict and consistent
penalties for plagiarism.

• Depending on the situation, another solution
may be to change assessment methods and
augment student assessment with
presentations and oral examinations, so that
grading is not just based on a single high-
stakes essay.

Student Assessment With Presentations
And Oral Examinations

Track Developments in the Field to Guard against
Diploma Mills and Illegitimate Providers
• Assign dedicated staff to closely follow
developments in foreign education systems
and become familiar with the accreditation
mechanisms in these countries.
• Diploma mills and fly-by-night operators
can only go undetected if no proper research
on the official accreditation status of these
enterprises has been done.

Track Developments in the Field to Guard
against Diploma Mills and Illegitimate
Providers

Track Developments in the Field to Guard against
Diploma Mills and Illegitimate Providers
• In August 2017, the Zimbabwean
government closed down no less than 223
illegally operating colleges.
• It is important that staff is aware of such
developments to ensure that credentials from
these types of illegitimate institutions don’t
make it past the assessment stage.

Beyond Academia: Broader Solutions
• Safeguards against fraud are, of course, just a
reactive measure against the symptoms of academic
corruption without remedying its causes.
• Fighting endemic corruption at its roots will usually
necessitate a governmental response well outside
academia.
• Many experts agree that stamping out corruption in
heavily afflicted countries requires political reforms
to establish transparent regulatory systems, and
tough enforcement to punish and deter unethical
behaviour.

• In higher education, this usually means that
strong internal quality mechanisms must be
combined with external quality controls and
audits.
• Since both the direct state control of
universities, on one hand, and the complete
autonomy of institutions, on the other hand,
facilitates corruption, a middle-ground
approach is often recommended.

• The use of external examiners to double-grade exams
• Automization of examination forms (barcodes instead of
names)
• Cyber security measures to control access to student
records
• Use of university rankings based on corruption criteria
• External audits of admissions decisions
• Sanctions on politicians, civil servants and others with
fake degrees
• Legislative protection of whistle blowers

• Authoritarian governments in states like
Singapore and Rwanda have achieved great
success in combating corruption with zero
tolerance policies, public education
campaigns and stiff penalties for
corruption.

• While this approach is less likely to be
replicated in more open societies, success
stories in the fight against corruption often
demonstrate the effectiveness of independent
external monitoring.
• In Romania, for example, the introduction of
an independent university ranking that
includes academic integrity and financial
irregularities as assessment criteria has caused
universities to become more transparent and
compete by adopting better governance practices.

• Georgia, meanwhile, curbed endemic
corruption in university admissions by
taking admissions decisions away from
universities and instituting a centralized
admissions system monitored by external
observers in which each exam is graded by no
less than six different people.

Terminology
• Contract Cheating
• Contract cheating is a form of academic
dishonesty in which students get others to
complete their coursework for them by putting
it out to tender.

Terminology
• Diploma Mill
• an institution or organization that grants large
numbers of educational degrees based on
inadequate or inferior education and
assessment of the recipients.

Terminology
• Essay Mill
• An essay mill (also term paper mill) is a
business that allows customers to commission
an original piece of writing on a particular
topic so that they may commit academic fraud.

Terminology
• Exam Impersonator
• Candidate hired to write exam for others,
taking an exam for someone else.

UGC List Of Fake University
• https://www.ugc.ac.in/page/Fake-
Universities.aspx

References
What is Academic Integrity?
• https://integrity.mit.edu/
International Day Of Action Against Contract Cheating
• http://contractcheating.weebly.com/
iThenticate: Plagiarism Detection Software
• http://www.ithenticate.com/
WENR - World Education News & Reviews
• http://wenr.wes.org/2017/12/academic-fraud-corruption-and-implications-for-credential-
assessment#_ftn3

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