Contract Cheating in Higher Education

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Contract Cheating In 2014
What Online Cheating Is Happening Today & What
Can The Computing Community Do About It?
Dr. Thomas Lancaster
University of Sheffield
Tuesday, 20 May 2014

A Bit Of Background

What’s Being Covered?
A look at the world in which students are paying (or using)
third parties to help them complete their course!
Based around selected highlights of research within the
Innovations in Computing Education group at Birmingham
City University, current news stories and observations of the
wider cheating and plagiarism landscape
Intention is engage in discussion about what can be done at
the University of Sheffield to reduce the opportunities for
(and impact of) contract cheating

Discussion Welcome!
Twitter -
Live – Feel free to join in and share ideas
#contractcheating

My Background
Dr. Thomas Lancaster Senior Lecturer in Computing
Acting Associate Head of School of
Computing, Telecommunications and
Networks
Programme Leader BSc Computer
Science
Senior Fellow of the Higher
Education Academy
PhD “Effective And Efficient
Plagiarism Detection” from London
South Bank University
Leader of Innovations in Computing
Education Group

A Nod To My Colleague
“Detective Bob”
Robert Clarke Educational Consultant and
Researcher at SCL
Current Visiting Lecturer
Former Principal Lecturer
30 Years Experience Teaching At
Birmingham City University
Has collected over 19,000 attempts at
Contract Cheating
An expert in “Multi-Dimensional
Sudoku”

Why Do Universities Care
About Cheating?

The Publicity?
Sheffield Star, January 2010
http://www.thestar.co.uk/what-s-on/out-about/cheat-list-shame-for-university-students-1-311090

Turning Out People Who
Can’t Do Their Job?
“this a assignment for do shielding for fast reactor i
need the materials, shape, attenuation coefficient and
size of the shielding and dose analysis around the
reactor. this for health physics or nuclear engineering”
Do you want to
live within 5 miles
of this person?

Disadvantaging
“Honest” Students?
“Would you like to go for a job and be pipped to
the post by someone who cheated in their
degree?”
Robert Clarke, Birmingham City University
When Essays For Sale Become Contract Cheating, November 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20298237

How Easy Is It To Get Started
With Contract Cheating?

“PMs Offering To Help
You Cheat!” (December
2013)
http://www.postgraduateforum.com/thread-29353

How About Contracting
A PhD?

Other Sources Of
Contract Cheating

Contract Cheating
Contract cheating occurs when a student uses a
third party to produce an original piece of
assessed work for them

Can We Detect Contract
Cheating?

This Happened In
Florida
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/local-6-confronts-man-helping-students-cheat-for-cash/25825182

“Local 6 News” Sting
Operation
Writer found on local classified site
$95 payment for a seven page finals paper in
May 2014
Writer says he earns around $1000 per month
for writing 40 papers
Hired by both students and their parents
Essay not detected as unoriginal by Turnitin

Cheating Happens!

“The Secret World Of
Cheaters” WNCT 9
Anonymous survey in May 2014 of 180 students at East Carolina
University.
15 out of 180 (8.33%) had paid someone else to do their work for them
18 out of 180 (10%) had been paid by other students to do work for them
“I’ve done it. And I’ve passed. I kind of spend my time
downtown. I don't study. All these kids in the library, it's easy.
If they want a quick extra buck or two, I’m like hey man, write
this paper for me.”
http://www.wnct.com/story/25468950/secret-world-of-cheaters

UK Students Largely
Willing To Cheat
Contract Cheating was mathematically modelled by
researchers at Manchester University using the Choice
Experiment (CE) Method
90 2nd/3rd students at three universities were confidentially
asked to consider paying to have upcoming assignment
produced for them
Over 50% expressed willingness to commit contract cheating
depending on expected grade, risk of being caught, penalty
posed and the price
Rigby, D., Balcombe, K., Burton, M., Bateman. I. and Mulatu, A. (2011), Eliciting The Illicit: Choosing To Cheat, International
Choice Modelling Conference 2011, Leeds, July 2011

The Roots Of Our Research

“Observable” Contract
Cheating
RentACoder.com was an “agency site”, primarily for
computing tasks, where people could place up jobs they
needed completing and other people would bid to
complete the work for them.
The “average” student posted between 4-7 assignments before their
cheating was attributed
(RentACoder since renamed and taken over by Freelancer.com)

How This Was Reported
In 2006
Times Higher Education, 16 June 2006
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/todays-news/203722.article

Typical Computing
Assignment On
Freelancer.com
Observed on 14 May 2014

Most Of The Time, It’s
Not This Easy!

Current Database Of
“Observable” Contract
Cheating
18,729 detected items between March 2005 and
June 2013
16,626 out of 18,729 from Freelancer.com (or
incorporated sites)
Easiest to search
Provide plenty of details of users to aid attribution
Certain users are actively tracked

Freelancer.com Knows
About Assignment Use
Matt Barrie from Freelancer.com – Getting Results From Crowdsourcing (2010 Talk)
http://www.slideshare.net/TheInsightExchange/matt-barrie-freelancercom-getting-results-from-crowdsourcing

Computing Assignments
On RentACoder.com
(Sample of 910
Computing cases
collected between Mar
2004 and December
2006)

Typical Manual
Detective Success Rate
Assignments
Posted
Source
Attributed
Student
Identified
1 in 3 postings
detected
1 in 3
attributed
1 in 3
students found
1 in 27
cheaters
dealt with

Contract Cheating
Observations

Posted By An
Intermediary Contractor
Traced through details in
attached file
Could the chances of
identifying the student
be improved if the data
set attached to posting
was individualised?

Some Assignments Are
A Distraction!
Some staff put a lot of
effort into designing
interesting and challenging
assignments
Sometimes they are so
interesting that Bob gets
distracted from the task
of cheating cheaters!

Source Traced Using
Turnitin
Turnitin can be used to
match assignment briefs
and subsequently identify
the source institutionA 16% match on Turnitin was
enough to attribute the source

Open Contract Cheating
Questions

What Can We Do About
Automated Detection?
No one yet has made a serious attempt at
automating detection, although solutions have
been proposed
Automated monitoring and scraping of agency sites
Artificial Intelligence techniques to classify whether an
auction is student work or not
Analyse and track student writing/programming styles
(stylometrics)

How Can We Make
Contract Cheating
Attributable?
Can we develop a national/international
database of assignments briefs?
How far will individualised assignments help to
identify individual students?
Do we need individual academics to take control
for monitoring for their own assignment briefs?

Are We Setting The
Right Assignments?
Can we develop assignments that are not
susceptible to contract cheating?
Are exams, practical tests, viva voces
appropriate within Computing?

Can We Rely On The
Honesty Of Other
Students?
Harvard To Adopt Student Honesty Pledge, BBC News, 9 May 2014
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-27326404

Are We Clear That
Contract Cheating Is An
Offence?
https://www.shef.ac.uk/physics/teaching/new_students/cheating

Can We Make The
Penalties Fit The Crime?
“Indian press reports claim one student from the
subcontinent was recently deported from the US
after all his assignments were found to have been
outsourced.”
“Aspiring IT Pros Caught Contract Cheating, The Contractor, 2006
http://www.contractoruk.com/news/002733.html

Are We Open With
Students About Contract
Cheating?
Do our students understand that their lecturers
use the same technologies as they do?
Do they see the value of completing their own
work for their future employment?
How can we work with our students as partners
in our exploration of this issue?

Cheating Continues To
Evolve…

A Future Cheating
Scenario?
http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/Stephen+Hume+There+many+definitions+chea
ting/9828845/story.html
“Student One crams until 4 a.m., then falls asleep, exhausted. Three
hours later, it’s up for a quick shower, then off to write the 9 a.m. exam
with bloodshot eyes, a headache and the nagging feeling of having arms
and legs that are about to float away which comes with not enough
sleep.
Student Two, on the other hand, has prescription medicine that is a
powerful stimulant. This student powers through the night and shows up
feeling fresh, alert and full of energy, totally focused on the material
studied overnight.
Is Student Two cheating; obtaining an unfair advantage over Student One
with a legally-prescribed drug that enhances performance during the
examination?”

And Continues Into The
Workplace…
(Requested For The Same Person)
Systems Development paper
Select a sample system for
development that would benefit a
business of your choice. Prepare a
plan for determining the feasibility
of the systems development.
Present and explain both business
and system planning documents
and/or templates that allows you
to state the objectives, goals and
tactics. Explain how they are used
and show examples. Please
comment on how you would
present risks and mitigation
strategies to users
DB help
I need help with an exisiting database form. The form
needs to be searchable by patient name. And the
follow-up visits section shows 3 slots they would rather
have one that shows ALL the follow-up visits. Let me
know if more info is needed. The database information
is CONFIDENTIAL. Thanks
1600 “live”
oncology records
from hospital in
California

Further Resources

References For Our
Contract Cheating Work
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.

For More Information
General Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_cheating
http://contractcheating.com
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
Contact Me At:
thomas.lancaster@bcu.ac.uk

Contract Cheating in Higher Education

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