This presentation, delivered as a guest seminar for the Academic Integrity Policies class taken by PhD candidates at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey, provides an overview of how the contract cheating research field has developed since 2006 and current research challenges and opportunities in the field in 2020. It is based on materials used in the Academic Integrity in STEMM module I lead with undergraduate students at Imperial College London, but tailored to meet the needs to the local audience. As the presentation notes, contract cheating research is still in its infancy and care needs to be taken as to how results are interpreted, but there are also many opportunities for new researchers to get involved and to develop local case studies. Most importantly, we need to consider how to promote academic integrity and address contract cheating, as well as how actively incorporate and involve students as partners in this discussion.

1. Contract Cheating
The State of Research and Practice in 2020
(part of Academic Integrity Policies class at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey)
Presented by
Dr Thomas Lancaster
thomaslancaster.co.uk
@DrLancaster
Class led by
Dr Salim Razi
salimrazi.com
@salim_razi

2. Dr Thomas Lancaster
• Senior Teaching Fellow in Computing at Imperial
College London
• Published more peer reviewed papers on
academic integrity than any other living
researcher
• Published the first paper on contract cheating
(with the late Robert Clarke)
• Keynote speaker and media commentator
• Operate in partnership with students (many
examples in this session taken from my own
Academic Integrity in STEMM module)
Academic Integrity Policies 2

3. Recent Publications
Lancaster, T., 2020. Academic Discipline Integration
by Contract Cheating Services and Essay
Mills. Journal of Academic Ethics, 18, pp.115-127,
doi:10.1007/s10805-019-09357-x.
Lancaster, T., 2020. Commercial contract cheating provision through micro-outsourcing web sites. International
Journal for Educational Integrity, 16(1), pp.1-14.
Lancaster, T., Glendinning, I., Foltýnek, T., Dlabolová, D. and
Linkeschová, D., 2019. The Perceptions of Higher Education
Students on Contract Cheating and Educational Corruption in
South East Europe. Journal of Educational Thought/Revue de
La Pensée Educative, 52(3), pp.209-227,
doi:doi.org/10.11575/jet.v52i3.69722.
Student experiences
of contract cheating
Contract cheating
across
disciplines
Contract
cheating
provider
workflows
and
pricing
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4. Some Questions For You
To Think About
What is contract cheating and why does it matter if educators address
this?
How is contract cheating positioned within the wider context of
academic integrity research?
What current research is happening into contract cheating and how
the value of this research be assessed?
What are the emerging challenges in the contract cheating field?
How can the research findings help to improve future practice?
Academic Integrity Policies 4

5. What Is Contract
Cheating?
Academic Integrity Policies

6. Contract Cheating (2006)
Academic Integrity Policies
Clarke, R. and Lancaster, T., 2006, June. Eliminating the successor to plagiarism? Identifying
the usage of contract cheating sites. Proceedings of 2nd international plagiarism
conference (pp. 19-21). Northumbria Learning Press.
and many more sites, including…
6

7. A Book From
2009
Academic Integrity Policies 7

8. Contract
Cheating in
1972
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9. Contract Cheating in 2020
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10. Contract Cheating – Definitions?
A variant on plagiarism and collusion?
“The outsourcing of assessed student work” Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R., 2016. Contract
cheating: the outsourcing of assessed student
work. Handbook of Academic Integrity, pp. 639-
654.
“the process of completing an assignment for a
student”
Clarke, R. and Lancaster, T., 2006, June.
Eliminating the successor to plagiarism? Identifying
the usage of contract cheating sites. Proceedings
of 2nd International Plagiarism Conference.
Northumbria Learning Press.
“a basic relationship between three actors; a
student, their university, and a third party who
completes assessments for the former”
Draper, M.J. and Newton, P.M., 2017. A legal
approach to tackling contract
cheating?. International Journal for Educational
Integrity, 13(1).
“a third party completes work for a student who
then submits it to an education provider as their
own”
Quality Assurance Agency, 2020. Contracting to
cheat in higher education. 2nd Edition.
Academic Integrity Policies 10

11. Discussion Questions
Academic Integrity Policies
Do we need to discuss contract
cheating?
How do the issues of plagiarism
and contract cheating compare?
11

12. Collaboration – Collusion - Copying
Academic Integrity Policies
collaboration collusion copying
beyond this point may
be plagiarism
beyond this point is
plagiarism
Culwin, F. and Naylor, J. (1995), Pragmatic Anti-Plagiarism, 3rd Annual
Conference on the Teaching of Computing, Dublin, Ireland, pp. 61-66
12

13. The State of Academic
Integrity and Contract
Cheating Research

14. Top 30
Bigrams
found in
academic
integrity
paper titles
source: 8507 papers on
academic integrity
published between 1904
and 2019
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15. Academic
Integrity +
Academic
Honesty
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16. Academic
Dishonesty +
Academic
Misconduct
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17. Academic Integrity Academic
Misconduct
The preferred focus
of discussion
A necessary part
of the academic
integrity discussion
Framing The Discussion
plagiarism
contract
cheating
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18. Contract
Cheating
Academic Integrity Policies 18

19. Discussion Question
Academic Integrity Policies
Why have so few papers been
written about contract cheating?
19

20. Papers By Year With “Contract
Cheating” In The Title
1
2
4
2
0
2
5
1
3
2 2
17
9
22
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Academic Integrity Policies 20

21. Papers By Year With “Contract
Cheating” In The Title
1
2
4
2
0
2
5
1
3
2 2
17
9
22
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
22 papers
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22
papers
21

22. Why Does Contract
Cheating Happen?

23. The Student Decision
risk reward
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24. The Student Decision
risk
reward
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25. Why Do Students Cheat?
Academic Integrity Policies
Newstead, S.E., Franklyn-Stokes, A. and Armstead, P., 1996.
Individual differences in student cheating. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 88(2), p.229.
1st Time pressure
2nd To increase the mark
3rd Everybody does it
4th To help a friend
5th Laziness
Reasons for student cheating given by 943 students
25

26. Reasons Students Provide On Twitter
(based on 246 tweets)
Academic Integrity Policies
Perseverance 40.7%
Academic aptitude 28.9%
Self-discipline 13.0%
Personal issues 9.8%
Competing objectives 7.7%
Amigud, A. and Lancaster, T., 2019. 246 reasons to cheat: An analysis of students’ reasons for
seeking to outsource academic work. Computers & Education, 134, pp.98-107.
26

27. Some Contract Cheating
Research Findings

28. The First Study
(Based on 912 cases from March 2004 to October 2005 with identifiable universities)
Academic Integrity Policies
18 out of 912 cases from
Turkey
Students, on average, had
posted between 4 and 7
requests for assignments
Clarke, R. and Lancaster, T., 2006, June. Eliminating the successor to plagiarism? Identifying
the usage of contract cheating sites. Proceedings of 2nd international plagiarism
conference (pp. 19-21). Northumbria Learning Press.
28

29. Contract Cheating Is Common
• Newton reviewed sources discussing surveys of students
completed between 2014 and 2018
• Newton found 15.7% of students said they would contract
cheat (which he equated to 31 million students globally)
Newton, P.M., 2018, August. How common is commercial contract cheating
in higher education and is it increasing? A systematic review. In Frontiers in
Education (Vol. 3, p. 67). Frontiers.
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30. Students Will Buy Essays
Rigby, D., Burton, M., Balcombe, K., Bateman, I. and Mulatu, A.,
2015. Contract cheating & the market in essays. Journal of
Economic Behavior & Organization, 111, pp.23-37.
Rigby et al found that half of all students would be
willing to buy essays, given the right risk-reward ratio
Academic Integrity Policies 30

31. Contract Cheating is Habitual
62.5% of students who said they had engaged in contract
cheating, had done so more than once.
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Curtis, G.J. and Clare, J., (2017). How Prevalent is Contract
Cheating and to What Extent are Students Repeat Offenders?.
Journal of Academic Ethics, 15(2), pp.115-124.

32. Direct Contract Cheating Is Affordable
More common micro-outsourcing price point currently $11.46
USD for a 2000 word essay
Most writers from Kenya, Pakistan and Nigeria
Lancaster, T., 2020. Commercial contract cheating provision
through micro-outsourcing web sites. International Journal for
Educational Integrity, 16(1), pp.1-14.
Academic Integrity Policies 32

33. Students Will Pay More In Certain
Circumstances
Students on Twitter willing to pay $66.64 for a 2000 word
essay.
Highest demand for cross-discipline mathematics
Students willing to pay a premium for someone to take an
examination for them
Amigud, A. and Lancaster, T., 2020. I will pay someone to do my assignment: an
analysis of market demand for contract cheating services on twitter. Assessment &
Evaluation in Higher Education, 45(4), pp.541-553.
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34. Most Visible Contract Cheating Requests Made
By Business and Computing Students
Lancaster, T., 2020. Academic Discipline Integration by Contract Cheating
Services and Essay Mills. Journal of Academic Ethics, pp.1-13.
Ranking Discipline
1 Business
2 Computing
3 Health/Medicine/Nursing/Psychology
4 History/Philosophy
5 Law
6 Social Studies
7 Accounting/Finance
8 Humanities
9 Mathematics
10 Science/Applied Science
Academic Integrity Policies 34

35. The Work Might (Or Might Not Be) Good
Fail Pass Credit Distinction
Undergraduate 2 7 3 1
Postgraduate 6 3 2 2
Lines, L., 2016. Ghostwriters guaranteeing grades? The quality of online ghostwriting services
available to tertiary students in Australia. Teaching in Higher Education, 21(8), pp.889-914.
Based on 26 history essays
Academic Integrity Policies 35

36. Is Research
Always
Valid?

37. Discussion Question
Academic Integrity Policies
Can you think of any examples
when contract cheating research is
not valid?
37

38. The Survey Fallacy
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perceptions
admission
actuality
38

39. Reflective Tasks
Surveyed students believe that contract cheating is least likely in
reflective tasks
Bretag, T., Harper, R., Burton, M., Ellis, C., Newton, P., van Haeringen, K., Saddiqui, S.
and Rozenberg, P., 2019. Contract cheating and assessment design: exploring the
relationship. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(5), pp.676-691.
Academic Integrity Policies 39

40. When Is Contract Cheating Research
Valid?
Research may be valid, but only in specific circumstances:
Geographic locations
Time
Academic discipline area
With a certain teaching style
Based on how specific students are willing to answer specific
questions
Academic Integrity Policies 40

41. Does Contract Cheating
Matter?

42. Discussion Question
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What are the risks of contract
cheating?
Who suffers as a result?
42

43. Contract Cheating has Consequences for
Society
Khan, Z.R., Hemnani, P., Raheja, S. and Joshy, J., 2020. Raising Awareness on Contract Cheating–Lessons
Learned from Running Campus-Wide Campaigns. Journal of Academic Ethics, 18(1), pp.17-33.
Direct Long Term Surrounding
Student has not benefited
from teaching
Anxiety
Low self esteem
Loneliness
Difficult
finding/keeping
jobs
Depression
Suicide
Shortage of skills and
knowledge impacting
families and economy
Unethical practices at
workplaces
Academic Integrity Policies 43

44. Students Who Contract Cheat Need
Support
Students find contract cheating processes challenging
and this continues to future assessments
Not willing to tell their families
Worried about damage to their reputation around their
university
Pitt, P., Dullaghan, K. and Sutherland-Smith, W., 2020. ‘Mess, stress and
trauma’: students’ experiences of formal contract cheating
processes. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, pp.1-14.
Academic Integrity Policies 44

45. Blackmail Is A Risk
From a survey of 587 students in Australia, some had personal
experience of blackmail
90% of students claimed to be unaware of the risk of
blackmail.
Yorke, J., Sefcik, L. and Veeran-Colton, T., 2020. Contract cheating and
blackmail: a risky business?. Studies in Higher Education, pp.1-14.
Academic Integrity Policies 45

46. What Should We Do
Next?

47. Detection Options
Writing patterns
Keystroke analysis
Forensic file analysis
Generated questions
Site scanning
Human indicators
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48. Discussion Question
Academic Integrity Policies
One of the principles of academic
integrity says we should trust
students, so is detection the
answer?
48

49. “Solutions” To Contract Cheating
Improved academic
integrity education for all
involved
Contract cheating
detection (or the risk of
detection)
Legal approaches
Human and computer
aiding writing support
More appropriate
assessment methods
Partnership working
with students
Better research into
contract cheating
Academic Integrity Policies 49

50. Emerging Challenges
Artificial intelligence writing
systems
Automated assessment
marking
Outdated and ineffective
processes
The tutoring market
Translation and essay
spinning software
File sharing sites
Societal concerns
about surveillance
Academic Integrity Policies 50

51. Student Collaborations
Deree, The American College of Greece
Imperial College London
Academic Integrity Policies 51

52. Discussion Question
What will you do about
contract cheating?
Academic Integrity Policies 52

53. Q&A
Academic Integrity Policies 53

54. Connect With
Dr Thomas Lancaster
Email: thomas@thomaslancaster.co.uk
Website: http://thomaslancaster.co.uk
Blog: http://thomaslancaster.co.uk/blog
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/thomaslancaster
Twitter: @DrLancaster
Slide Archive:
http://www.slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster