The document summarizes key findings from a research project on contract cheating in Australian higher education. The project involved surveys of over 14,000 students and 1,100 staff across 8 universities. It found that contract cheating is a systemic issue influenced by perceptions of higher education as a business. While most outsourcing involves people students know, certain factors like speaking a non-English language at home increase risk. Authentic assessment alone does not prevent cheating, and suspected cases often go unreported due to lack of proof or time. Overall, the problem requires addressing the complex causes rather than simplistic solutions.
United States of America is that the right selection for instruction in prime universities. Students will pursue their higher studies, appropriate on their education background.
If you want to study in Australia, you need to have some valid reasons to do so. When you tell people that you want to study there, some of them wonder why. Some of them assume that the country largely comprises a vast outback of bush, kangaroos, koalas with fresh air and water. Others see Australia as a leading sporting nation due to their prominence in major sports events. However, this country is far more than that. As a potential international student, you may have done some research. Australia is undoubtedly a peaceful yet active place with a burgeoning economy and an excellent education system with high living standards.
Learn what you need to know about the financial aid process. This presentation by Discover Student loans is intended to help parents and students on topics such and federal aid, scholarships, grants, federal and private student loan options.
The information contained in this presentation is subject to change and does not constitute legal advice. Always consult a financial planner or a tax advisor for detailed information.
For more information visit DiscoverStudentLoans.com
United States of America is that the right selection for instruction in prime universities. Students will pursue their higher studies, appropriate on their education background.
If you want to study in Australia, you need to have some valid reasons to do so. When you tell people that you want to study there, some of them wonder why. Some of them assume that the country largely comprises a vast outback of bush, kangaroos, koalas with fresh air and water. Others see Australia as a leading sporting nation due to their prominence in major sports events. However, this country is far more than that. As a potential international student, you may have done some research. Australia is undoubtedly a peaceful yet active place with a burgeoning economy and an excellent education system with high living standards.
Learn what you need to know about the financial aid process. This presentation by Discover Student loans is intended to help parents and students on topics such and federal aid, scholarships, grants, federal and private student loan options.
The information contained in this presentation is subject to change and does not constitute legal advice. Always consult a financial planner or a tax advisor for detailed information.
For more information visit DiscoverStudentLoans.com
Abroad shiksha consultants presentation study abroad (2)rajeshbw
Why you Study abroad? Study Abroad benefits , Students planning to study abroad in international destinations such as UK, Canada or USA can check the information on study abroad programs, study abroad scholarships, and study abroad MBA, student visa etc. Also can interact with study abroad career counselors, for any query regarding VISA or application. Visit Us: http://abroadshiksha.com/
My Presentation as Principal of VAMCC ,before NAAC TEAM - Sunil Sharma
VAMCC apply for 2nd cycle to NAAC for its gradation. The team arrived for visit as per schedule. on 8th April-2015 , the proceeding kicked off with my PPT presentation. Here I am uploading the same to guide others
This is a PowerPoint presentation I completed during my senior year at Ole Miss. The subject was graduate school, and I completed it with a group of 4 individuals.
University Student Payment System, USPS is a student financial solution for educational institute. It's our under graduate project. Here is the abstract of this project.
University Student Payment System ‘USPS’ is an online base bespoke application system. It is mainly an accounting system but it is not a conventional accounting system. It has some specialty; it is specific only for student. Students will be able to pay their tuition and other semester fees online using this system. Guardian will able to pay their students fees through online and able to see the student financial statement. It has various message options to notify transaction information like as mobile, emailing also own messaging system. On demand University Student Payment System users will be able to view receipts, payment statement from anywhere in the world using Internet.
At the primary stage of developing University Student Payment System, we have studied similar systems. Most of systems are e-commerce system. USPS has some similarity with e-commerce system, because students have payment their fees using their bank account, credit or debit card and using their mobiles through third party payment gateway.
This guide provides comprehensive information pertaining to Scholarships available for you to study in good universities and how to apply for them. It also offers important tips to choose right Scholarship for yourself. This guide is prepared by expert having more than 5 years of experience in mentoring students for higher studies and Scholarship programs.
This is a North Central University essay about analyzing a statistical research sample. Components include research questions, null and alternative hypotheses, and types of statistical analysis. It is written in APA format, includes references, and has been graded by an instructor (A).
Slides from a Master's Degree Information Session held Feb. 15, 2023 by Capitol Technology University. Discusses all aspects of studying at Capitol in one of its accredited online programs.
The college application process can be overwhelming for high school juniors and seniors, as well as their families. This seminar provides a detailed overview of the entire process, including current trends in admissions, how to build a college list, the various components of the college application, and basics about financial aid.
In May 2018 I ran an e-Assessment workshop for members of the Griffith University Assessment Committee.
Topics included:
- What do we already understand about digital assessment
- What are our current pain-points
- We will identify where these sit on our assessment lifecycle
- Talk through some of the emerging tools and techniques, such as:
- Contract cheating and some ways to address this
- Digital exams and proctoring some tools now available
- Conditional assessments and Marking tools
- Looking at what’s possible in Office 365 + BB
- Use of voice in assessment
Abroad shiksha consultants presentation study abroad (2)rajeshbw
Why you Study abroad? Study Abroad benefits , Students planning to study abroad in international destinations such as UK, Canada or USA can check the information on study abroad programs, study abroad scholarships, and study abroad MBA, student visa etc. Also can interact with study abroad career counselors, for any query regarding VISA or application. Visit Us: http://abroadshiksha.com/
My Presentation as Principal of VAMCC ,before NAAC TEAM - Sunil Sharma
VAMCC apply for 2nd cycle to NAAC for its gradation. The team arrived for visit as per schedule. on 8th April-2015 , the proceeding kicked off with my PPT presentation. Here I am uploading the same to guide others
This is a PowerPoint presentation I completed during my senior year at Ole Miss. The subject was graduate school, and I completed it with a group of 4 individuals.
University Student Payment System, USPS is a student financial solution for educational institute. It's our under graduate project. Here is the abstract of this project.
University Student Payment System ‘USPS’ is an online base bespoke application system. It is mainly an accounting system but it is not a conventional accounting system. It has some specialty; it is specific only for student. Students will be able to pay their tuition and other semester fees online using this system. Guardian will able to pay their students fees through online and able to see the student financial statement. It has various message options to notify transaction information like as mobile, emailing also own messaging system. On demand University Student Payment System users will be able to view receipts, payment statement from anywhere in the world using Internet.
At the primary stage of developing University Student Payment System, we have studied similar systems. Most of systems are e-commerce system. USPS has some similarity with e-commerce system, because students have payment their fees using their bank account, credit or debit card and using their mobiles through third party payment gateway.
This guide provides comprehensive information pertaining to Scholarships available for you to study in good universities and how to apply for them. It also offers important tips to choose right Scholarship for yourself. This guide is prepared by expert having more than 5 years of experience in mentoring students for higher studies and Scholarship programs.
This is a North Central University essay about analyzing a statistical research sample. Components include research questions, null and alternative hypotheses, and types of statistical analysis. It is written in APA format, includes references, and has been graded by an instructor (A).
Slides from a Master's Degree Information Session held Feb. 15, 2023 by Capitol Technology University. Discusses all aspects of studying at Capitol in one of its accredited online programs.
The college application process can be overwhelming for high school juniors and seniors, as well as their families. This seminar provides a detailed overview of the entire process, including current trends in admissions, how to build a college list, the various components of the college application, and basics about financial aid.
In May 2018 I ran an e-Assessment workshop for members of the Griffith University Assessment Committee.
Topics included:
- What do we already understand about digital assessment
- What are our current pain-points
- We will identify where these sit on our assessment lifecycle
- Talk through some of the emerging tools and techniques, such as:
- Contract cheating and some ways to address this
- Digital exams and proctoring some tools now available
- Conditional assessments and Marking tools
- Looking at what’s possible in Office 365 + BB
- Use of voice in assessment
Experience Counts! Leveraging Internship/Externship Experience to Secure Employment for your Graduates.
Join highly-rated APSCU speaker Ann Cross of the Sparrow Group and Connie Johnson Ed.D, Chief Academic Officer at CTU for this interactive and engaging workshop about standardizing and implementing institutional wide externship best practices. This is not a theoretical workshop- You’ll hear stories of success, see data that supports employment outcomes and leave with tools that you can take back to your institution and use immediately.
Combatting Contract Cheating: Training Staff in Your Institution - Quality As...Thomas Lancaster
What training should be put into place for teaching staff in our institutions? This presentation, delivered for the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), is aimed at people running staff development sessions and provides pointers for training areas to consider based on the QAA Contract Cheating Guidance.
Teacher Malpractice in Assessment: the International Context: Ofqual Ethics S...Ofqual Slideshare
Teacher Malpractice in Assessment: the International Context
A presentation by Ardeshir Geranpayeh, Ph.D. Head of Psychometrics & Data Services - Oxford at the Ofqual ethics symposium
26th March 2015
Verifying the authenticity of study materials is paramount. Choosing recognized publishers, accessing materials through official channels, and cross-referencing information with reputable sources contribute to a reliable study experience.
Employers value candidates who demonstrate a commitment to ethical practices and genuine effort. The use of Exam Dumps raises questions about an individual's dedication to their craft and may influence hiring decisions.
The Dark Side of Exam Dumps
Academic Integrity Concerns
Cheating Epidemic
One of the primary concerns associated with exam dumps is the escalating trend of academic dishonesty. Students resort to using these materials as a shortcut, compromising the true essence of education.
Impact on Education Quality
The reliance on exam dumps raises questions about the quality of education. When students prioritize memorization over understanding, the overall educational experience suffers.
Seminar recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4_esFnZ7LA&t=288s
Remote proctored exams are a type of digital assessment where students are monitored, usually by their webcam and microphone, as they complete a test. Remote proctoring has proliferated during the pandemic as it lets students sit high-stakes examinations in their own homes. Compared to unproctored online exams, students sitting remote proctored exams tend to get poorer grades, which proponents of proctoring often regard as evidence that proctoring reduces cheating. However, critics argue that proctoring is a form of surveillance, and it creates an adversarial, untrusting assessment environment.
Using concepts from assessment security, academic integrity and surveillance studies, this presentation puts remote proctoring under scrutiny and examines the evidence for and against. It offers suggestions for those who are using proctoring on how to minimize its potential harms and maximise its potential benefits. Finally, it sets out challenges for both advocates and critics of remote proctored exams on the sorts of evidence we need to make an informed decision about the use of proctoring.
Workshop given at ASET Annual Conference, Cardiff 2007.
The workshop examines the expectations and attitudes of both students and employers to work placements as part of the undergraduate curriculum.
Online Tests: Can we do them better? | Bopelo Boitshwarelo, Jyoti Vemuri, Han...Blackboard APAC
The use of e-assessment methods to facilitate and evaluate learning is a growing trend in the higher education space. In particular, the use of online tests has increased rapidly concomitant with the expansion of digital technologies for teaching purposes. Online tests, in the context of this presentation, refer to computer assisted-assessment where the deployment and marking is automated and typically involves objective types of questions such as multiple choice questions (MCQs), true/false questions, matching questions as well as predetermined short answer questions. The growing sophistication of Learning Management Systems(LMSs) such as Blackboard provide an increasing capacity for different types of online tests to be deployed, administered and marked efficiently. Additionally, most major textbook publishers and authors in certain disciplines provide online question banks that can easily integrate with LMSs meaning less time is spent on creating tests from scratch.
With these trends in mind, questions arise around the efficacy of online tests in higher education.
In this presentation we will share findings of a study investigating practices around online tests. First, we will explore what the literature reveals about the role of online tests in higher education and particularly how online tests are used to lead to student learning through formative assessment processes and feedback practices. Secondly, the presentation will review the practices around online tests at the Charles Darwin University Business School and discuss emerging issues. Thirdly, the presentation will distil some preliminary guiding principles around designing, developing, administering and reviewing online tests for effective learning and assessment. Finally, ongoing and further research by the team on the topic of online tests will be highlighted.
This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners. They will ...alanwylie
The Australian and New Zealand Keynote Panel presentation by Colin Latchem for the DEHub/ODLAA Education 2011 to 2021- Global challenges and perspectives of blended and distance learning the (14 to 18 February 2011).
BU3010 –Business LawCourse SyllabusSchool of Professiona.docxAASTHA76
BU3010 –Business Law
Course Syllabus
School of Professional Studies
BUS3010 – BUSINESS LAW
(Prepared 12/29/17 for SP18A)
Contents
3Overview
3Course ID
3Course Name
3Department
3Credits
3Prerequisites
3Instructor
3Telephone
3E-mail
3Office
3Office Hours
3Class Meetings
3Classroom
3Learning Management System
3Course Description
4College Information
4Centenary Greater Expectation Learning Outcomes (CGEs)
4Business Department Learning Outcomes
4Classroom Conduct
4Academic Code
4Academic Honesty
6“Publication” of Written Work and Assignments
6Academic Assistance
6Accommodations
6Technical Support
6Course Information
6Course Material
Error! Bookmark not defined.Reference Publications
Error! Bookmark not defined.Reference Websites
6Instructional Techniques
6Course Objectives
7Student Evaluation
8Attendance
9Assignments
9Late Assignments
10Course Schedule
10Session 1
10Session 2
10Session 3
11Session 4
11Session 5
11Session 6
12Session 7
12Session 8
13Activities and Rubrics
13Threaded Discussion Requirements
13Threaded Discussion Rubric
Error! Bookmark not defined.Activity 1
Error! Bookmark not defined.Activity 1 Rubric
26Activities Calendar
Overview
Course ID:BUS3010
Course Name:BUSINESS LAW
Department:
SCHOOL OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIESCredits:
4
Prerequisites:
BUS1001
Studentsshould be competent in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Instructor:
Leonard P. Pasculli, JD, MBATelephone:
973-579-6143(H)E-mail:
[email protected]
Instructor will do his best to respond to telephone and e-mail messages within 24-hours.
Office:
N/A
Office Hours:
Instructor is available to meet with students before or after On Ground classes by appointment.
Class Meetings:
On-Ground (i.e., in person) each Monday, January 8 through February 26, 2018, 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. This includes Martin Luther King Jr. Day (1/15) AND President’s Day (2/19). We will meet in person on both of those days.
However, in the event of inclement weather, check Moodle and/or email.
Classroom:
7 Campus Drive, Parsippany-- Room number: ____
Learning Management System:
Access the Moodle student tutorial at: http://www.centenarycollege.edu/cms/en/moodle-help-center/moodle-help-center/students/ for instructions on how to log in, navigate, and submit assignments.
Moodle accessibility versions are available for download; please contact the IT Help Desk at ext. 2362 or [email protected] for assistance.
Course Description:
This Business course will examine areas of law affecting business including the legal process and forms of businesses; contract law; the law of sales; personal, real, and intellectual property law, and product liability and consumer protection. These and business ethics will comprise the principal focus of the course. International treaties and laws affecting those areas of law will also be explored throughout the course.College Information
Centenary Greater Expectation Learning Outcomes (CGEs):
In March 2004, th ...
Do you have issues concerning academic integrity? Is ghostwriting increasing in your context? Are you interested in learning about different approaches from others in managing and promoting academic integrity? Academic integrity continues to be a global issue as increased accessibility to technology provides new challenges for teachers and managers, especially in English language learning contexts.
In this session, Cara Dinneen, Juliana Kendi and Alison Black explored policy and institutional support for academic integrity, teacher and student support strategies, and assessment design.
Students First 2020 - Usage and impact of academic supportStudiosity.com
Comparing Studiosity with other forms of Academic Support – An ‘ecosystem’ of student support services.
Jennifer Lawrence, Program Director, University of New England
Students First 2020: Digital Campus, A program to empower & enable digital ed...Studiosity.com
Prof Kevin Ashford-Rowe, DVC Digital Learning and Dr Caroline Rueckert Director Student Success share how QUT - an innovative, tech-capable university - saw the need to evolve and build internal consensus for the digital student experience in recent years, and shares what that looks like in 2020-2021 in response to new velocity, urgency, and inclusive student care.
In this session Prof Ashford-Rowe and Dr Rueckert invite discussion around the need and velocity for change, through the lens of thoughtful direction, a students-first approach, and due diligence.
- The 3rd campus, and insight into QUT's cohort
- Digital at heart vs digital in part
- Equitable student support, Studiosity
- Building consensus and support for investment in the "third campus", from leadership to all key technology, academic, and student services stakeholders.
Students First 2020 - Embracing and effectively leveraging online student sup...Studiosity.com
Students First 2020 - Prof Philippa Levy, PVC Student Learning at The University of Adelaide, discusses the path to successfully adopting Studiosity, and what has happened since for academic success, confidence, and student satisfaction. Prof Levy also looks at results and engagement for non-traditional students and international students.
Students First 2020 - Creating a comprehensive student support ecosystemStudiosity.com
As we continue this year's online Symposium series, we were joined by Professor Angela Hill, DVC Education at ECU and Professor Rowena Harper, Director, Centre for Learning and Teaching at ECU, who generously shared Edith Cowan's in-depth and dedicated approach to student support.
Session Chair: Prof Judyth Sachs, Chief Academic Officer, Studiosity
A look at how Studiosity is supporting partners digitally in the absence of on-campus visits.
This year's EMEA Studiosity Symposium was hosted online on 1st and 2nd April 2020.
Challenges faced by universities in online education - EMEA Online Symposium ...Studiosity.com
Neil Mosley of Cardiff University examined some of the challenges universities face in online education, with a focus on what to change, think and do differently.
Neil’s three key suggestions for universities to consider for the next academic year were:
- Invest and invest wisely in people and technology
- Seriously consider forming partnerships
- Don’t delay!
Students helping other students with study questions: digitalised peer assist...Studiosity.com
Three trials of online peer study support took place at Australian and New Zealand universities in 2019, allowing students to help other students with study questions, on-demand. The trials were a global first at this scale, allowing students within the same institution to connect with each other on-demand, one-to-one, within a robust quality control system. The university programs were designed to enable course and institution-specific assistance to students, at their time of need, and alongside existing study support.
In the first public reporting on the online peer-to-peer trials, Mike Larsen spoke to delegates from the UK and Ireland at the EMEA Online Symposium 2020.
How are students actually using technology? EMEA Online Symposium 2020Studiosity.com
At the EMEA Symposium 2020, Sarah Knight, Head of data and digital capability at Jisc, delivered a data-focused insight into how students are actually using technology in further and higher education. Here are some key findings:
- Office for Students predicts that over a million digitally skilled people will be needed by 2022 whilst 24% of HE students said they never worked online with others
- 70% of HE students agreed that digital skills were important for their chosen career but only 42% agreed that their course prepared them for the digital workplace
Here are the key recommendations that, now more than ever, can practically help your students:
- Raise awareness of the importance of digital skills
- Ensure they know what digital skills they need to have before they start and provide opportunities to develop these only online
- Encourage collaboration to emulate business practices
- Embed digital skills through curriculum design
This year's EMEA Studiosity Symposium was hosted online on 1st and 2nd April 2020.
Academic Writing Evaluation - Denise Stewart, General Manager Operations, and...Studiosity.com
Helping with more - and earlier - insight into students' writing abilities, Studiosity partners can already use the Academic Writing Evaluation (AWE) service now.
Outcomes: More students enrolling are less prepared. Universities need the insight to control the quality of degrees offered; and most importantly, to provide the best possible experience for the students arriving, regardless of CALD, EAL backgrounds, socio-economically diverse circumstances, including international enrolments.
Recommended action: Academic Writing Evaluation (AWE) - ask your Studiosity Partnership Manager to switch on this extra service for your students, or particular cohorts.
This year's Studiosity 'Students First' Symposium was hosted at La Trobe University City Campus, 25 and 26 July 2019.
Preview of 2020 technology developments - Adam McNeil, Studiosity, CTOStudiosity.com
At the 'Students First' Symposium, Adam McNeil, Chief Technology Officer at Studiosity, discussed a critical part of improvement: data.
Adam first explained that the opportunities for Studiosity data also expanded with the services' move to 24/7. Adam also reminded us that data is only as good as the action it informs, and that Studiosity student data helps improve student engagement in other ways across the university, too. Drawing on examples of industries outside the education sector, the point was clear - do something with your data.
This year's Studiosity 'Students First' Symposium was hosted at La Trobe University City Campus, 25 and 26 July 2019.
La Trobe's success developing the student experience - Professor Jessica Vand...Studiosity.com
Professor Jessica Vanderlelie - La Trobe's Pro Vice-Chancellor Student Success - is one of Australia's most dedicated drivers of the student experience. Which makes it even more appropriate that she welcomed 'Students First 2019' delegates this year.
Listening to students is a critical part of driving effective change. Jessica described La Trobe University’s initiatives to put student feedback at the centre of the university. Delegates also heard that 70% of Studiosity users felt they’ll get a higher grade, 81% of Studiosity users felt more confident, and Studiosity users were 44% more likely to stay enrolled.
This year's Studiosity 'Students First' Symposium was hosted at La Trobe University City Campus, 25 and 26 July 2019.
Helping students avoid plagiarism: Citation Alert - Mike Larsen and Sherwin H...Studiosity.com
Mike Larsen and Sherwin Huang led a discussion on feedback literacy and Studiosity's new 'Citation Alert' feature within Studiosity's Writing Feedback function.
Explaining that rather than take on another policing role, Studiosity seeks to help the vast majority of students who don't mean to plagiarise, but perhaps do - due to anxiety, feeling rushed, feeling tired.
Outcomes: Most plagiarism is unintentional, how can those students be better supported?
Recommended action: Studiosity partners can switch on Citation Alert in Semester 2, 2019.
This year's Studiosity 'Students First' Symposium was hosted at La Trobe University City Campus, 25 and 26 July 2019.
Online writing feedback: A national study exploring the service and learning ...Studiosity.com
Professor Chris Tisdell, Scientia Education Academy Fellow at the University of New South Wales (...and YouTube star, mathematician, former DJ...) kicked off the day by talking student word choice, feedback, and psychology, and wellbeing.
Chris presented findings from a national study which used the feedback from students from more than 20 universities. Why? After every Studiosity session, students give feedback. That feedback from students needs to be analysed and used in practical ways (especially recalling Associate Professor Phill Dawson on Day One, who discussed the importance of feedback literacy and translating it into action.) Online, 24/7 support is needed as much to fulfil student expectations for their overall university service experience, as it is needed for delivering learning outcomes.
This year's Studiosity 'Students First' Symposium was hosted at La Trobe University City Campus, 25 and 26 July 2019.
Language and access: Understanding the language barrier from a Deaf perspecti...Studiosity.com
Dylan Beasley, Project Officer at deafConnectEd, presented in Auslan to the 'Students First' room. Dylan explained deaf people of course have differing education experiences, capabilities, personal and family circumstances, and past experiences. Also, under the demand-driven system, this diversity in student backgrounds is now the norm for the entire student population. So with greater personalisation, accessibility of support, and improved duty of care, will the Deaf community start to benefit as well?
This year's Studiosity 'Students First' Symposium was hosted at La Trobe University City Campus, 25 and 26 July 2019.
The myth of 21st century skills and the reality of learning - Dr Jared Cooney...Studiosity.com
At Studiosity's "Students First 2019" Symposium.
The Learning Blueprint: http://lme.global/students-first
In this session, Dr Jared Cooney Horvath - Educational Neuroscientist, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne - dissects 21st century skills (Critical Thinking, Creativity, and Collaboration) and explores why they are so hard - potentially impossible - to teach, and talk about the only truly ‘future-proof’ skill there is: learning.
So, are university students learning to learn? Students - as part of their degree - should be equipped to be better critical thinkers, communicators, collaborators, and creators in order to have sustainable and successful careers, and for society to benefit from effective problem solvers.
This year's Studiosity 'Students First' Symposium was hosted at La Trobe University City Campus, 25 and 26 July 2019.
Online academic support & student retention: Early signs of a positive correl...Studiosity.com
At Studiosity's "Students First 2019" Symposium:
Online academic support & student retention: Early signs of a positive correlation at CQUniversity CQUniversity has found indications of a positive correlation between Studiosity usage and retention, when compared to retention rates in the general student cohort. This presentation will walk through these findings and offer some useful food for thought.
Chris Veraa is Director of Student Experience at CQUniversity, and brought the room three years (2017, 2018, 2019) worth of data on Studiosity users: retention, academic success, rates of unit failure, and also how students’ anecdotal feedback compares to academic outcomes.
CQUniversity Studiosity users (on average):
• Have a 16.45% higher rate of retention than the cohort
• Experience 21.7% less unit failure than the cohort
• Are 17.31% less likely to be placed on academic probation than the cohort
This year's Studiosity 'Students First' Symposium was hosted at La Trobe University City Campus, 25 and 26 July 2019.
Feedback and cheating: Rethinking two hard problems that really matter - Asso...Studiosity.com
At Studiosity's "Students First 2019" Symposium:
We are in the midst of cheating panic and some responses aren’t evidence based, explains Associate Professor Phillip Dawson, Keynote, and Associate Director of the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University. Phill asked the room to consider - what if we let important cheating regulation carry out its function, without detracting from productive student feedback processes?
This year's Studiosity 'Students First' Symposium was hosted at La Trobe University City Campus, 25 and 26 July 2019.
The opportunity and waste of human potential: Managing the mental health of t...Studiosity.com
At Studiosity's "Students First 2019" Symposium:
The renowned youth mental health advocate, Australian of the Year, and this year's keynote, Professor Pat McGorry, addressed the critical need for early intervention for tertiary students.
This year's Studiosity 'Students First' Symposium was hosted at La Trobe University City Campus, 25 and 26 July 2019.
Chris Fitzpatrick, Studiosity: Results - the 2018 National Student SurveyStudiosity.com
Chris presents the results of the 2018 National Student Survey that gathered insights into student experience and wellbeing of 1000 Australian students.
Watch the video of the presentation at https://youtu.be/wcKawEYUUV8 [29mins]
Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology:
Ethnobotany in herbal drug evaluation,
Impact of Ethnobotany in traditional medicine,
New development in herbals,
Bio-prospecting tools for drug discovery,
Role of Ethnopharmacology in drug evaluation,
Reverse Pharmacology.
Instructions for Submissions thorugh G- Classroom.pptxJheel Barad
This presentation provides a briefing on how to upload submissions and documents in Google Classroom. It was prepared as part of an orientation for new Sainik School in-service teacher trainees. As a training officer, my goal is to ensure that you are comfortable and proficient with this essential tool for managing assignments and fostering student engagement.
This is a presentation by Dada Robert in a Your Skill Boost masterclass organised by the Excellence Foundation for South Sudan (EFSS) on Saturday, the 25th and Sunday, the 26th of May 2024.
He discussed the concept of quality improvement, emphasizing its applicability to various aspects of life, including personal, project, and program improvements. He defined quality as doing the right thing at the right time in the right way to achieve the best possible results and discussed the concept of the "gap" between what we know and what we do, and how this gap represents the areas we need to improve. He explained the scientific approach to quality improvement, which involves systematic performance analysis, testing and learning, and implementing change ideas. He also highlighted the importance of client focus and a team approach to quality improvement.
Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
The French Revolution, which began in 1789, was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France. It marked the decline of absolute monarchies, the rise of secular and democratic republics, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. This revolutionary period is crucial in understanding the transition from feudalism to modernity in Europe.
For more information, visit-www.vavaclasses.com
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
CLASS 11 CBSE B.St Project AIDS TO TRADE - INSURANCE
Associate Professor Tracey Bretag: Contract cheating implications for Teaching and Learning
1. Contract cheating in
Australian higher education
Project Co-Leaders
Associate Professor Tracey Bretag and
Dr Rowena Harper
This Strategic Priority Project (SP16-5283) is supported by the Australian Government
Department of Education and Training
Implications for teaching and learning
2. Project team
Lead institution
• University of South Australia (Project co-leaders: Tracey Bretag & Rowena Harper)
Partner institutions
• Griffith University (Karen van Haeringen)
• University of NSW (Cath Ellis)
• University of Sydney (Pearl Rozenberg)
• Swansea University, UK (Phil Newton)
Data analyst
• Michael Burton (University of Western Australia)
Project Manager
• Sonia Saddiqui (University of South Australia)
3. 2015-2018 context
2015 2016 2017
MyMaster
scandal
Fake testamur,
transcript
mills
ICAC investigates
HE corruption
TEQSA requests
academic integrity
info from all providers
‘Ghost’
students
Fraudulent
recruitment
practices
in VET
Low admission
standards
Exam
Impersonation
(SBS ‘Pens for Hire’)
‘Airtasker’
scandal
‘Edubirdie’
2018
4.
5. “Contract cheating occurs when a student submits work that has been
completed for them by a third party, irrespective of the third party’s
relationship with the student, and whether they are paid or unpaid.”
(Harper & Bretag et al, 2018)
Third party:
• friend or family
• fellow student or staff member
• commercial service
Contract cheating
6. Research questions
1. How prevalent is contract cheating in Australian higher education?
2. What are student and staff attitudes towards and experiences with
contract cheating?
3. What are the individual, contextual and institutional factors that are
correlated with contract cheating?
4. What kinds of assessments are associated with contract cheating?
5. Can ‘authentic’ assessment solve the problem of contract cheating?
7. Research design
1. Parallel staff and student surveys at 8 universities
◦ Student respondents = 14,086 (incl. sample of 925 qualitative responses)
◦ Staff respondents = 1,147 (incl. 315 qualitative responses)
2. Large dataset of procurement requests posted to multiple cheat sites
◦ Shows the types of assessment commonly contracted out to third parties
3. Data from two universities’ longitudinal academic integrity databases
◦ Shows the assessment items in which purchased assignments have been
detected
8. Seven ‘outsourcing’ behaviours
Buying, selling
or trading
notes
Providing a
completed
assignment
(for any
reason)
Obtaining a
completed
assignment
(to submit as
one’s own)
Providing
exam
assistance
Receiving
exam
assistance
Taking an
exam for
another
Arranging for
another to
take one’s
exam
Sharing behaviours Cheating behaviours
10. 1. Contract cheating is a symptom, not the problem
One-third of staff described contract cheating as a systemic problem, created or
made worse by government and institutional policy and practice.
The upsurge in third-party cheating is due to students'
perception of university degrees as a commercial
transaction due to university management's focus on the
business of education, such that marketing of university
'products' becomes more important than the education
process itself (Staff 167).
11. 1. Contract cheating is a symptom, not the problem
Students also discussed systemic problems in higher education, and used this to
rationalise the existence of various forms of cheating.
with education now a 'business' and degrees sold as a
'product' - there is less connection and understanding
that University is about acquiring knowledge. It is seen
as a user-pays system to get the degree. The degree will
get the job, or the extended visa for the Masters, the
job, etc. […] It's about getting passes, getting through
the process - hence, little attachment to the ethics of
cheating… (Student 753, non-cheating).
12. 2. Students share their work a lot…
6% have engaged in one or more of the 5
‘cheating’ behaviours (with exam
cheating the most common)
15% have bought, traded or sold notes
27% have provided someone with a
completed assignment
13. … and this may lead to contract cheating
Cheating students were 2xmore
likely than Non-cheating students to
engage in sharing…
… and more likely to pay money or use
a file sharing website or professional
service for this purpose
14. 3. It’s who you know
Despite the spread of file-sharing websites and online cheating services,
students still primarily engage in
outsourcing with people they know
current students, former students, friends, and family
15. 4. Three factors contribute to contract cheating
Gender?
Discipline?
Language?
Study mode?
Domicile?
1. Speaking a language other than English at
home
2. Perceptions that there are ‘lots of
opportunities to cheat’
3. Dissatisfaction with the teaching and
learning environment
16. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Not at all Slightly Moderately Very Extremely
%ofrespondents
Level of concern
Cheating Group
Non-cheating Group
Staff
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Not at all Slightly Moderately Very Extremely
%ofrespondents
Level of concern
Cheating Group
Non-cheating Group
Staff
5. Students aren’t concerned …
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Not at all Slightly Moderately Very Extremely
%ofrespondents
Level of concern
Cheating Group
Non-cheating Group
Staff
17. … and we’re not talking to them about it
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Non-Cheating Group Cheating Group Staff
18. 6. Suspected cheating often goes unreported…
Three reasons:
1. Perceptions it’s
‘impossible to prove’
2. Too time consuming
3. Staff don’t feel
encouraged to report
19. … and penalties are lenient
Outsourced assignment
• 30% Warning/counselling
• 27% Zero for assignment
• 21% Reduced mark for
assignment
• 3% Suspension
• 2% Exclusion/expulsion
Exam impersonation
• 23% Zero for the exam
• 23% Warning/counselling
• 16% Zero for the subject
• 16% Suspension
• 12% Exclusion/expulsion
Staff were asked what a typical penalty includes.
20. Many students rationalised cheating in ‘trivial’ assessments, or justified unauthorised
learning practices because they reflect the ‘real world’.
In engineering, the worst possible student would love to try hard and do design work; however, "useless
assignment" like weekly quizzes are very unwelcome (Student 46, non-cheating).
Students are more likely to cheat with take home exams or online exams/quizzes. With the internet
readily available at most jobs now, having to memorize material for exams is becoming more and more
irrelevant. Universities would do well to remember the resources available to students once they enter
their profession and spend time testing/quizzing/ examining students in a more relevant manner
(Student 148, non-cheating).
7. Authentic assessment is a good thing to do…
21. We identified 5 factors of authenticity possible in any assignment
Using these, we then rated (out of 5) the authenticity of:
1. over 200 assignment orders made to multiple cheat sites
2. assessments identified and penalised by two universities as
contract cheating
Authenticity coding based on work by Bosco & Ferns, 2014; Iverson, Lewis & Talbot, 2008
7. …but authentic assessment isn’t a solution
22. Authenticity coding based on work by Bosco & Ferns, 2014; Iverson, Lewis & Talbot, 2008
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0 1 2 3 4 5
None Some All
In the procurement data:
Assessment tasks with no, some,
or all authenticity factors are
routinely ordered by students
In one discipline (Education) ALL
the orders were for highly
authentic assignments (4 or 5)
7. …but authentic assessment isn’t a solution
23. Authenticity coding based on work by Bosco & Ferns, 2014; Iverson, Lewis & Talbot, 2008
In the university breach data:
• The same pattern occurred:
• Assessment tasks with no, some or all of the 5 authenticity factors were outsourced by
students.
• Paid contract cheating occurred most frequently in Society &
Culture, and Management & Commerce.
•Unpaid contract cheating was the more prevalent form of this
behaviour.
•Contract cheating occurred at all levels – UG & PG
7. …but authentic assessment isn’t a solution
24. 8. Assessments ‘less likely’ to be outsourced are rarely used
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Short
turnaround
time
Heavily
weighted
tasks
Continuous
tasks
Sequenced
assessment
(final task)
Sequenced
assessment
(early task)
Completed
in class
Personalised
& unique
task
Viva Reflection
on
practicum
%ofrespondents
Likely to outsource (Non-cheating Group) Likely to outsource (Cheating Group) Regularly implemented by staff
25. So what does this all mean?
• Contract cheating is a systemic problem: the
causes are multiple and complex
• Responsibility does not rest solely with
students, or educators
• Simplistic solutions (e.g. assessment design)
are on their own ineffective
• However, there are some T&L strategies
that can be employed
• Staff and student decisions are enabled and
constrained by institutional and sector
conditions
26. Acknowledgments
• The Project acknowledges the work of our colleague, Dr Saadia
Mahmud, for her provision of descriptive statistics and analysis,
which greatly contributed to our early thinking on the findings.
• This project was funded by the Australian Government
Department of Education and Training, Grant SP16-5383.
27. References
Bretag, T., Harper, R., Burton, M., Ellis, C., Newton, P., Saddiqui, S.,
Rozenberg, P & van Haeringen, K. (2018). Contract cheating: A
survey of Australian university students, Studies in Higher
Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1462788
Harper, R., Bretag, T., Ellis, C., Newton, P., Saddiqui, S., Rozenberg,
P & van Haeringen, K. (2018). Contract cheating: A survey of
Australian university staff, Studies in Higher Education.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1462789
Project website: www.cheatingandassessment.edu.au
29. Authentic assessment
• Commonly described as assessment tasks that reflect the ‘real world’
• Five features of authentic assessment identified:
1. Frequency – task is common or fundamental to discipline or profession
2. Fidelity – task reflects how something is done in discipline or profession
3. Complexity – task reflects the ‘messiness’ of real-world problems
4. Impact – task has real impact, shared with or delivered in the real world
5. Feed forward – task directly, meaningfully informs future practice
(Based on work by Bosco & Ferns, 2014; Iverson, Lewis & Talbot, 2008)
Editor's Notes
Some of you might recall what was going on around the time that the OLT sought to commission a project on contract cheating in higher education. There were growing concerns in the sector about students’ increasing use of commercial cheating services to complete their assessments for them. We were becoming aware of a number of providers – like MyMaster for example – who, for a fee, could connect students up with writers who would create bespoke, custom-written assignments to fit any task instructions. These custom assignments are harder for universities to detect using existing methods, like text-matching software, so people were getting worried that there was a lot of undetected cheating going on. A number of other cheating and corruption scandals emerged over the next year, some of which were significant enough to prompt institutional interventions, independent investigations by ICAC, and attention from TEQSA – Australia’s higher education regulator.
More recently, some of you may have seen the coverage about Airtasker – a general outsourcing tool that allows you to find someone to complete a task for you, like walking your dog, putting together Ikea furniture, fixing your computer etc. This platform was also being used by students and by freelance writers to arrange contract cheating.
We haven’t had a scandal yet this year – it’s shame in some ways, as scandals do tend to prompt universities into action. In that sense, they’re valuable things. At the APCEI conference last year, Peter McCallum’s advice was if you want to prompt change at your university, ‘don’t waste a good scandal!’
Signs of the problem are also evident in the barrage of marketing to which our students are regularly subjected – on campus, in the community, via infiltration of university email systems, and through social media. Opportunities to cheat are everywhere, and researchers are concerned that it may be becoming more common for students to think about outsourcing their learning.
Thinkswap, for example, offers a platform to legitimately share notes and study guides. But when you examine what’s being uploaded to that site, it’s mostly completed assignments. Course Hero offers a similar platform, but the more you upload, the more credits you earn. Your work, therefore, becomes a commodity that can be traded or sold. In this context it can be difficult for students to identify which services are questionable and which might be encouraged or endorsed by their university. Many of these services have – or appear to have – legitimate intentions. They are highly professional, and they use university names, information and logos to signal their relevance and credibility.
The site at bottom right of screen has a very professional interface. You select the type of assignment you want to buy, the word or page length, your level of study – from high school through to PhD – and then there’s a sliding scale of cost, depending on how close the due date is. The concern among researchers is that these services may become a ‘slippery slope’ for students to outsource more and more of their learning. You start by buying notes, then you’re buying completed assignments as models for learning, then perhaps using more and more of those assignments as your own work. For naïve and vulnerable students who wouldn’t ordinarily consider cheating, but are either motivated by gaining a credential, or struggling with their program, these services could present a solution. Moreover, evidence shows that the more students think that cheating is commonplace, the more they will consider doing it themselves.
Although the great concern was and is about commercial cheat services, in this project we wanted to investigate all kinds of student ‘outsourcing’. Not just outsourcing to a paid service, but also outsourcing work to friends, family, peers – the kind of outsourcing that isn’t new, but certainly still goes on in higher education.
So we defined contract cheating as when a student submits work that has been completed for them by a third party, irrespective of the third party’s relationship with the student, and whether they are paid or unpaid. This person may or may not be someone they know, and money may or may not be exchanged, but the student is outsourcing an assessment task – in whole or in part – to someone else.
It’s important to note that the main focus of our project is cheating – deliberate, fraudulent behaviour that consciously attempts to pass off others’ work as one’s own. We are not talking about inadvertent breaches of academic integrity – confusion about referencing, about collaboration vs. collusion [though we have a lot of data about that] or confusion about other academic practices. They are altogether different things, so we use very different language to talk about those. Even though students can end up engaging in inadvertent plagiarism and serious forms of contract cheating for many of the same reasons, the term ‘cheating’ is used here to distinguish these types of breaches from those that are entirely accidental.
So we developed this set of five research questions that we felt would provide us with the data we needed.
How prevalent is contract cheating in Australian higher education?
What are student and staff attitudes towards and experiences with contract cheating?
What are the individual, contextual and institutional factors that are correlated with contract cheating?
What kinds of assessments are associated with contract cheating?
Can ‘authentic’ assessment solve the problem of contract cheating?
The last two questions were prompted by the OLT, in response to a prevailing assumption that had been circulating for some time that assessment design – and authentic assessment specifically – could ‘solve’ the problem of contract cheating. We in the project team hear this all the time – this idea that we can ‘design out’ cheating through the manipulation of our assessment tasks and conditions.
We did quite an extensive literature review in preparation for this project, and we couldn’t find any evidence that suggests authentic assessment can reduce cheating. What is common in a number of significant papers is the idea that authenticity will lead automatically to engagement, which will lead to a disincentive to cheat. While we found some evidence in our qualitative data to support this series of inferences, our quantitative data debunked this completely, and actually suggested that perhaps – not definitely, but perhaps – students might be more likely to think about outsourcing highly authentic tasks. More about that shortly.
So how did we set out to answer the research questions. Well, we have gathered together the largest and most comprehensive dataset on this subject in the world to date. We collected survey data from two parallel staff and student surveys conducted at 8 universities, to which we had over 14,000 student responses and over 1,100 staff responses. Almost all the items were quantitative in nature, but we added one open text box at the end and asked staff and students simply if there was ‘anything else they’d like to tell us’ – and boy, was there.
In addition we have a large dataset of students’ bespoke assignment purchase orders, harvested from multiple cheat sites. And we have access to the de-identified academic integrity database records from two universities showing the details of all detected cases of purchased assignments.
Although we are primarily interested in contract cheating, we are also interested in the idea that students might be outsourcing or commodifying their learning in a range of ways – as indicated by the various sites I showed you earlier. Given the prevalence of online file-sharing sites that students use to swap notes and also completed assignments, we were curious to see how many students were using these, and whether use of these was associated with higher rates of cheating. In other words, was there any evidence to support our ‘slippery slope’ hypothesis. And of course in addition to assignment outsourcing, we were also interested in the outsourcing of exams – either in whole or in part. So we investigated a set of seven ‘outsourcing’ behaviours to explore the hypothesis that some students might engage in legitimate sharing and swapping behaviours en route to more serious forms of outsourcing, particularly if they’re using file-sharing sites.
If you look at the second behaviour, for reasons of survey design, we didn’t classify ‘providing a completed assignment to another student’ as a cheating behaviour, but we know it can be. Some students swap assignments for the purpose of peer learning, however we know some assignments are shared between students to facilitate cheating. This is important to remember when we come to the data.
Now although we see signs that contract cheating and outsourcing might be growing exponentially, we haven’t up to this point had any Australian data to indicate how big the problem might be, or what we might do about it. And internationally, most studies of the issue have been relatively small scale.
So emerging from the analysis of all this data, there were many dozens of interesting insights. From that, however, we’ve identified eight key findings that should drive university responses to the issue of contract cheating. I’ll walk you through them one by one.
The first finding is the most important, as it puts all the other data in context, so I’ll spend a few slides walking you through it. That first finding is this:
Contract cheating is a symptom, not the problem. This finding came out strongly in both the quantitative and qualitative data from staff and students, which connected the issue of student cheating to the wider context of higher education: to the attitudes and behaviours of educators, to the policies and practices of universities, and to the positioning of higher education by government.
Contract cheating is a systems problem, and systems theories or systems models were the most fitting way to explain the data that we collected. It’s purely by chance that our project logo of the nautilus turned out to be the perfect image for symbolising our findings. We initially chose the nautilus for a few reasons. It represented learning: growth, transformation, and staging/scaffolding. It also represented security, protection, a defence against dangerous or corrupting influences. We wanted something that represented ‘authenticity’ or uniqueness, given the OLT’s request – to that end we looked at finger prints and images of eyes but these were too reminiscent of surveillance. We also wanted something which represented complexity and the idea of being multi-faceted.
With regard to the findings, the nautilus helps to symbolise that these components of the higher education system are nested within one another, and influence one another directly. Student cheating takes place within these contextual layers, and they are all responsible for and all contribute to the problem. What the nautilus also conveys well that other systems diagrams can’t is the relative size of the effect of each layer – while educators, for example, have an important role to play in preventing cheating, their institutions must first do the work of establishing organisational conditions in which they can do the work that’s needed to ensure integrity.
So, one-third of staff quite explicitly described contract cheating as a systemic problem, created or made worse by government and institutional policy and practice.
[POINT out quotes]
They talked about education as a product, rather than a learning process. When a university program becomes a piece of paper, the aim is to get the piece of paper as efficiently as possible. This could be called a transactional approach to learning.
When we looked at the prevalence of the seven outsourcing behaviours, it was clear that while cheating is occurring, it’s not nearly as common as sharing; students are sharing their work a lot.
15% have bought, traded or sold notes, but almost twice as many - 27% - have provided someone with a completed assignment. Remember that some of this sharing may be entirely legitimate, but some may come with the intent to cheat.
As a learning developer, the high rates of sharing completed assignments suggests to me that students are looking for exemplars – models of the kinds of assignments they’re expected to submit. And when the institution doesn’t provide them, they will share them amongst themselves. The risk here, however, is for students to copy and adapt work – with or without the providing student’s consent.
So students share their work a lot…
… and there is evidence that this may lead to contract cheating behaviours.
Students who reported engaging in one or more of the cheating behaviours were more than twice as likely to also report engaging in some form of sharing. In addition, they were more likely to have paid money, used a professional service, or file-sharing website for this purpose.
So it appears that sharing and cheating are linked in some way – but more research is needed to find out how. It may be students who are desperate enough to engage in cheating are seeking help wherever they can, including through sharing. Or it may that the slippery slope hypothesis is true – that some students who start sharing, and particularly through professional sites and services, find themselves adopting more serious cheating behaviours over time.
Now, even though cheating students are more likely to use professional services, it’s important to recognise that students still primarily engage in outsourcing with people they know. Despite the proliferation of online cheat sites, and their aggressive marketing, they are still not being widely used as far as we can tell.
This may explain why students studying fully online were less likely to engage in cheating behaviours. In Australia, many people are concerned about the growth of online learning, and the capacity for ‘anonymous’ students studying at a distance to cheat and easily get away with it. Well, if students still tend to rely on social networks for outsourcing, then it makes sense that on campus students have greater access to these kinds of networks and relationships and can capitalise on them.
If you recall our research questions, one of the key things we wanted to investigate was why students might engage in contract cheating, and we know from existing research that this is complex. There are demographic and attitudinal factors that appear to make students more prone, and it’s also influenced by contextual and situational factors – things to do with the teaching and learning environment. To answer this question, we initially compared the demographic profile of our cheating group against the demographic profile of all our survey respondents to see which characteristics were over-represented in students in the Cheating Group. Some leapt out. Male students were over-represented in the Cheating group. International students and those who speak a Language Other than English at home were also over-represented by a factor of two. This is nothing new. Much of the international academic integrity literature has been showing for some time that international and LOTE students are more vulnerable to engaging in cheating behaviours. When looking at discipline, Engineering students were also over-represented – they were 13% of respondents but 25% of the cheating group. This also agrees with research elsewhere, which tends to show Engineering and Business as the two areas where cheating is most common.
When looking at these individual variables, however, we were concerned that we might be looking at some conflated effects. For example, we know that the discipline of engineering – where there was lots of cheating – has lots of international students, and also lots of male students. So which one of these – if any – is the more powerful variable? Well, with the help of a statistician, we conducted a multivariate analysis, and it turns out that many of these variables are what you might call red herrings. In our sample, cheating behaviours boiled down to three influencing factors. These were: Speaking a language other than English at home; Perceptions that there are lots of opportunities to cheat, and Dissatisfaction with teaching and learning. If we look back on our Engineering students, this analysis indicated that it’s not the discipline of Engineering per se that is a factor in contract cheating, but rather than Engineering students are highly dissatisfied with the teaching and learning environment, and it’s this that drives their cheating behaviour.
One of the more startling findings of the research came when we asked both staff and students how concerned they were that students were engaged in cheating behaviours in higher education. We provided a 5 point Likert scale, ranging from Not at all concerned, through to Extremely concerned.
CLICK
Staff most commonly reported being ‘moderately’ concerned, however most of the remaining staff were either very or extremely concerned. When we analysed the student responses, we separated them into those from cheating and non-cheating students…
CLICK
Cheating students had almost the reverse profile. The largest group of students reported they were only slightly concerned about the existence of cheating in higher education, and the next largest group were not at all concerned. Only 5% of cheating students were extremely concerned.
When we looked at responses to this question from non-cheating students…
CLICK
The response profile was almost indistinguishable from that of the cheating group.
What this tells us is that although non-cheating students report that cheating is wrong, most don’t really mind that other students are cheating. They see it as a ‘victimless crime’. It reflects a view that other students are really only cheating themselves when they cheat. Students don’t see the public risk inherent in graduating students who are not competent, and they don’t see the reputational risk to their own qualifications.
This lack of concern is unlikely to change anytime soon, because we are not talking to our students about contract cheating.
We asked students about 10 features of teaching and learning practice at their university, and these included things having opportunities to approach educators, provision of sufficient feedback, clarity of assessment requirements, and also the extent to which staff explain and discuss contract cheating.
We gave staff the same set of items, and asked them to report the extent to which they implement these things in their own teaching practice. The columns show students levels of agreement and the line shows staff, and you can see that while there are areas in which staff and students agree that things are working well, for example, explaining AI policy, the circle indicates that both students and staff agree that contract cheating is not being talked about – it’s not being acknowledged as part of the everyday teaching and learning landscape that our students have to navigate and resist.
Almost half the staff surveyed report that they do not typically refer cases on to an academic integrity decision maker. This number is high. When asked why, the most common response was that such cases are ‘impossible to prove’, and other common responses included reports that the cases are too time consuming to pursue, and that staff do not feel supported by senior managers to pursue these matters. These are issues that universities will need to address if they want to start combating contract cheating.
Another reason that some staff may feel reluctant to report – and this is supported by our qualitative data – is that penalties applied for substantiated cases of cheating are quite lenient compared to those recommended in the literature.
Only 3% of students who have outsourced an assignment task were suspended, and only 16% of students who had arranged for an exam impersonator were suspended. The exam impersonator penalty is especially shocking – there was another person in the chair, and yet a large majority of students were allowed to remain in study.
On the question of authenticity and its role in combatting contract cheating, there was a quite a bit in the qualitative data to support the idea that students will rationalise cheating for tasks they think are trivial.
But to examine this question more closely, we looked beyond our survey data to our two other datasets. We looked at a sample of over 200 orders made to multiple online cheat sites, and also to substantiated contract cheating cases recorded by two universities. Using 5 factors of assessment authenticity identified in the literature, we coded these assignments to give them an authenticity rating.
In the online assignment orders, we found that most of the tasks we coded had between 1 and 3 authenticity factors, but there were tasks that had 4 or 5.
When we looked at coding by discipline, most followed this pattern, but in one discipline (Education) ALL the orders were for highly authentic assignments (4 or 5 factors).
A key question that emerged, looking at THIS data, was whether this pattern is typical of assignments at university. In other words, do the assignments we generally set fit this pattern, or are they generally more or less authentic? Only some kind of control group analysis would help us determine whether this is representative of our task profile, or whether students are more or less likely to outsource authentic tasks over other kinds of tasks.
And the final finding again relates to assessment. Although assessment design can’t function as a simplistic solution for contract cheating, students told us that there were 4 assessment types that they would be least likely to consider outsourcing – these are reflection on a practicum, personalised and unique tasks, tasks with associated vivas – that is, a task where a student submits a piece of writing, and then has to speak to it shortly after, and in-class assessment tasks.
However, you can see that those four task types were reported by over 40% of staff as being used rarely or never. So this means that some assessment types that might be useful for authenticating student learning aren’t really being used.
And when we looked into this data on assessment a little further with a multivariate analysis, we found evidence to further support the nautilus. That is, that organisational conditions clearly affect the extent to which staff choose to implement these forms of assessment. Specifically class sizes, staff/student contact time, marking time and teaching workload all have an effect on teaching and assessment decisions. Staff who report more positively on those conditions at their institutions are more likely to report using these kinds of assessments.