This research presentation from the Birmingham City University education conference 2015 examines the market for essays in health education and nursing education. The reasons why allowing cheating, plagiarism and contract cheating in these subjects are problematic are considered. The issues towards fitness for practice are explored. Examples of how students are using contract cheating sites to cheat across a variety of academic subjects are given. The talk concludes by looking at the type of essays and assignments that students in health are purchasing online and how these can be identified.

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An Exploration of Contract Cheating
and Academic Misconduct Within
Health Education
Dr. Thomas Lancaster and Robert Clarke
Pedagogies, Practitioners and Identities in Education
Conference
Birmingham City University
Monday, 13 July 2015

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Background

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Our Experience with Plagiarism, Contract
Cheating and Essay Mills
Dr. Thomas Lancaster
Senior Lecturer in Computing at Birmingham
City University
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education
Academy
PhD in Plagiarism (Prevention & Detection)
Teaches Employability and Professional
Practice
Robert Clarke
Educational Consultant at SCL
Visiting Lecturer/Former Principal Lecturer
30 Years Experience Teaching At BCU
Has Collected Over 25,000 Contract
Cheating Attempts (Buying Original
Assignments) Made By Students Worldwide

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Contract Cheating Investigation Results
“If you work this out it
probably comes out to about
one million pounds of work
being offered around, which
we’ve just detected.”
BBC Radio Kent
First broadcast 8 September 2014
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026jn26
Robert Clarke

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Research Presentation Objectives
Why technology-aided cheating in health education and
nursing education is of concern
The availability of essay mills and contract cheating
services for health
Examples of health assessments which students have
cheated on that have been found during our research
What a nursing essay bought through an essay mill looks
like
Pointers to recognise essays completed by a third party

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Why Are We Concerned About
Health And Nursing Education?

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Why Not Just Buy Your Nursing Essay?
Example of an essay mill targeted at UK nursing students

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“Nursing Students Implicated In
Coursework For Cash Claims”
“Undergraduates may be able to buy their way into the profession.”
Contract cheating sites “offer custom-written essays” and “can pass
undetected by university anti-plagiarism software that searches for
existing model essays on the internet.”
Nursing Times contacted sites wanting an essay for a second year
degree on palliative care, receiving three quotes between £83 and
£179.
“Robert Clarke, an IT lecturer at the university has been researching
contract cheating in his own and other subjects,
and found evidence that it occurs in nursing.”
Nursing Times – 7 April 2008
http://www.nursingtimes.net/whats-new-in-nursing/nursing-students-implicated-in-coursework-for-cash-claims/1079672.article

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Concerns Raised About Nursing Times Article
“If student nurses are happy to cheat in
essays, what about when they become
newly qualified nurses? How can they be
trusted to act in a professional manner?
Will they also cheat in, say the care they
provide; what about drug charts and drug
errors; the notes they take, and really
anything that they do that could be
cheated?”
Lee Potiphar PhD RN
Clinical Research Manager
Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals

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Outsourcing To The Wider Medical Profession
“The problem is getting worse because of the rising popularity of online
courses, with those students attempting to outsource not just essays
but their online tests too.
Clarke says his team has even found posts from courses training
nurses, pharmacists, and MRI scanner technicians.
‘Would you feel safe being looked after by these people?’ he says.
‘Cheating is not a victim-less crime. Every students who hands in work
that is not their own devalues the degree,’ Clarke continues. ‘A student
who inflates their grade may get an interview ahead of one who does
not’.”
SCOOPonline – July 11 2014
http://centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk/scooponline/?p=3780

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Health Education Incriminated
In “The Great Australian
Cheating Scandal Of 2015”

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Concerns Raised About The Ethics Of
Australian Medical Students
Sydney Morning Herald – June 6, 2015
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/cheating-scandal-sydney-university-to-review-medical-study-unit-
20150606-ghi5d2.html

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Need To Ensure “Fitness For Practice”
Sydney Morning Herald – April 20, 2015
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/corruption-rife-in-international-student-sector-of-leading-australian-universities-abcs-four-
corners-reports-20150420-1mp64t.html

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Four Corners Documentary (Australian TV)
Four Corners – 21 April 2015
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/04/20/4217741.htm
“They might find
themselves being the
only registered nurse on
duty and that is
something that
frightens me.”
Barbara Beale
Senior Academic (Retired)
School of Nursing and Midwifery
University of Western Sydney

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Pre-Written Health Essays Can
Sometimes Be Detected

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Posting With Ready-Made Solution
(From Transtutors – “Online Tutorial” Site)
2014 3875 NRS ASSESSMENT ITEM 2: INDIVIDUAL ESSAY
Current Issues in Nursing & Recommendations for Professional Development for Nurses
Weighting: 70%
Total marks: 100
Due Date: 16th May at 5pm
Task Description
You are required to write a 2000 word essay on a patient readmission. This topic needs addressing
in order to improve nursing standards/ practise. You are required to develop recommendations and
strategies for future professional development for nurses.
Download solution for

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Pre-Written Essay For A Nursing Degree
Of all women with court orders for child support
payments in 2001, 40% received full payment,
28% received partial payments, and 32% received
nothing (United Kingdom Bureau of the Census,
2003). Support is undoubtedly highest at the time
of birth and drops off sharply as relations
frequently deteriorate between the child's
parents.
.......
In the Wales study, which began in the mid-1960s,
46% of the unmarried fathers were providing
support to their children a year after delivery.
Seventeen years later, just 11% of the never-
married and 23% of the formerly married men
were helping to support their children
(Furstenberg et al., 2001).
Original Source
Teenaged pregnancy and
childbearing.
Furstenberg, Frank F.; Brooks-Gunn,
Jeanne; Chase-Lansdale, Lindsay
American Psychologist. Vol 44(2),
Feb 1989, 313-320.
Attempted Disguise
United States changed to
United Kingdom
Boston changed to Wales
Year changed from 1989 to
2001
Third year research essay purchased
from an essay bank and submitted

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Contract Cheating In Health Courses
Is Harder To Detect

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Contract Cheating
Students pay or involve a third party – getting them
to complete original work for the student
The intention is usually for the student to gain
academic qualifications (and subsequent
employment) that they do not deserve
Our work as contract cheating detectives on agency
sites has identified attempts by students to cheat
that have implications for the way health
assessments are set

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Scale Of Cheating – Essay Bay Study
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 plenty
of other sites exist to
fill the gap.

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Principles and Philosophy of Palliative Care
Models of death and dying and grief and loss enhance our understanding of
and guide the delivery of palliative care practice.
Critically analyse this statement with reference to the provision of palliative
care to individuals with a life limiting illness and their families.
Guideline:
In addressing this assignment, you are expected to incorporate the key
themes from the theoretical input of the Principles and Philosophy of
Palliative care module.
This will involve a critical analysis of the relevant literature, your clinical
practice and the wider palliative care practice arena.
Traced to MSc course in Dublin
Work completed for 128 Euros
(£92 GBP) in 5 days
Student posted other
assignments from same course

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Final Year Undergraduate Project Rewrite
The 15,000 dissertation has been submitted and the
lecturer has made comments. YOU need to take it all on
board and rewrite/edit/amend the paper accordingly!
and with quality !!!
This dissertation represents a critical appraisal of theory and methodology in the field
of endodontology (root canal therapy). The focus of this dissertation is on the practical
results of the mechanical aspects of the instrumentation for the cleaning and shaping
of root canals, using synthetic blocks. Modern Nickel-Titanium (Ni-Ti) rotary
instruments allow easy negotiation the curved root canals during endodontic
treatment. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine if there are any
detectable differences in final preparation shape when using less than the
recommended number of instruments in order to achieve the glide path in root canal
instrumentation

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Application For Nursing Course
Appliaction For enrollemnt into UNI
I Need help with just 1 page:
What main reason for wanting to undertake this
course? Enrolled Nurse
Include your career plan or goals and any other factors
that are relevant to your appliance:
Posted by “gearb34” – but no
indication of country of origin
Made several similar postings –
but no improvement in spelling

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What Does A Purchased Nursing
Essay Look Like?

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Dignity and Privacy In Nursing Essay
BBC South East Today – 9 September 2014
1500 word nursing essay
commissioned from a “UK”
essay mill by student Cecily
Snowball and journalist Piers
Hopkirk from BBC South East
Today
Payment made of £296

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2185 words, including references

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The start of the nursing essay

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All Publicity Is Good Publicity?
http://www.essayyard.co.uk/featured-on-bbc.php

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Detecting Contract Cheating

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Look For Signs Of Cheating In Essays
Suggestions from a survey of international
academic ghostwriters with European degrees,
expanded based upon our experience as contract
cheating detectives:
Look for use of ideas and quotes from paper abstracts (the only
sections available free to ghostwriters)
Challenge perfect technical formatting and word use
Examine assignment submissions with very low Turnitin scores
Look for personal experiences that do not match the student profile
Sivasubramaniam, S. and Ramachandran, S. (2015). A New Breed of Ghost-Writers: Exploring the Threat to the Academic
Community via Internationalisation and social media, Plagiarism Across Europe And Beyond International Conference, Brno, Czech
Republic, 10-12 June 2015.

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Confessions From A Productive Essay
Ghostwriter
“The secret to the gig is to amuse yourself. I have to,
really, as most paper topics are deadly boring.”
“Whenever papers needed to refer to a client’s own
life experiences, I’d give the student various sexual
hang-ups.”
http://thesmartset.com/article10100801
The Term Paper Artist
by Nick Mamatas
Published on The Smart Set

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Further Resources

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Expanded Research Seminar Available
Our wider work on contract cheating, plagiarism
and essay mill use in nursing education and
medical education is available to be presented
as:
One hour research seminar
Teaching and learning keynote presentation
Full day or half day training workshop

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References For Our Contract Cheating Work
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.
Hersey, C. and Lancaster, T. (2015). The Online Industry of Paper Mills, Contract Cheating Services, and Auction Sites, International Education Conference,
London, June 2015.
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. (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.

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Further Information
General Overview On Contract Cheating:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_cheating
Examining The Ease Of Buying Nursing Essays Online Through Essay Mills
And Contract Cheating Sites
https://youtu.be/fbgOU2-A95o
Contract Cheating Special Interest Group (supported by the Higher
Education Academy):
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=CONTRACTCHEATING
Slides Available At:
http://www.slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster

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Our Contact Details
Thomas Lancaster
Email: thomas.lancaster@bcu.ac.uk
Website: http://thomaslancaster.co.uk
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/thomaslancaster
Twitter: @DrLancaster
Robert Clarke
Email: robert.clarke@bcu.ac.uk
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/robert-clarke/16/12a/967