This presentation, from the International Center for Academic Integrity Conference 2020, discusses how contract cheating differs across different academic disciplines and subject areas. It brings together wider research in the field with findings from two recent studies conducted by the presenter.

1. Discipline Differences in Contract
Cheating
Dr Thomas Lancaster
http://thomaslancaster.co.uk
International Center for Academic Integrity
Annual Conference 2020
Portland, Oregon, USA
Sunday, 8 March 2020

2. Start

3. Dr Thomas
Lancaster
academic
integrity
advocate
contract cheating
“inventor”
Imperial
College
London
Student
support
Computer
Scientist
http://thomaslancaster.co.uk

4. Please
Tweet…
@DrLancaster
#contractcheating
#icai2020
Slide archive available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster

5. Yes, Cheating
Happens!
There are lots of examples
in this presentation

6. Contract Cheating
(based on Clarke and Lancaster, 2006)
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 student pays or engages a third party to
complete their academic work for them
(or attempts to do so)

7. Contract Cheating
(based on Clarke and Lancaster, 2006)
But, what do we really know about contract cheating?
A student pays or engages a third party to
complete their academic work for them
(or attempts to do so)

8. Some Questions
• How should we conduct contract
cheating research?
• What trends can we identify regarding
contract cheating marketing, supply and
demand?
• Should contract cheating be considered in
the same way across all academic
disciplines?
• Are some assignment types more
susceptible to contract cheating than
others?

9. Perhaps
Controversial?

10. Academic integrity research is good – for
awareness raising
Academic integrity research is not
necessarily good research

11. Contract cheating research is good – for
awareness raising
Contract cheating research is not
necessarily good research

12. Valid research?
It 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
My own research is imperfect

13. Premise For This Presentation
Little research has been completed on
addressing contract cheating at discipline
level

14. This Presentation…
Is there to help you question what you know about
academic integrity and contract cheating
To present some of my findings designed to help
motivate future work in this important field
And yes – to raise awareness

15. Does Assessment
Type Matter?

16. DITCH THE ESSAY!
With apologies to
Mike Reddy

17. Are Essays Susceptible To Contract
Cheating?
• A lot of assignments set are essays
• A lot of people can write good essays
• A lot of people can write superficial essays quickly and easily
• Services optimise their marketing around essays (the “essay mill”)
YES!

18. BUT…
If many times more essays are set than
other assessment types, we would
expect to see essays being susceptible
to contract cheating!
There is nothing wrong with carefully structured and assessed
essays – as part of a balanced assessment diet…
…just as there is nothing wrong with setting exams

19. FACT…
I teach Computer Science…
I have never set or assessed an essay…
I know few CS academics who set essays…
How relevant is this “well meaning” advice
to them?

20. Contrasting Opinions
Contract
cheating isn’t
a problem in
the United
States
i.e. we know of very few cases
There is much
more contract
cheating in the
United States
than the UK or
Australia
…but, there are many times more students
in the US than the UK or Australia

21. ask students
their opinion
when they are
being
monitored?
observe student
behaviour and what they
say when they are not
aware they are being
monitored?
use technical
methods to assess
authorship?
How can we accurately consider
contract cheating interventions at
discipline and assessment type level?
these are common research techniques, but all have flaws
analyse visible requests for contract
cheating services?
etc…

22. Research Based Primarily On Two Papers
Lancaster, T., 2020. Academic Discipline Integration
by Contract Cheating Services and Essay Mills. Journal
of Academic Ethics, pp.1-13,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-019-09357-x
supply
Amigud, A. and Lancaster, T., 2019. I Will Pay Someone
to do my Assignment: an Analysis of Market Demand
for Contract Cheating Services on Twitter. Assessment
& Evaluation in Higher Education, pp.1-13,
https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2019.1670780
demand
Alexander Amigud

23. Discipline Level
Contract Cheating

24. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7375845/Patients-risk-NHS-
MailOnline-investigation-exposes-cheating-student-doctors.html
Jake Wallis Simons

25. As Seen On Fiverr.com

26. Or on Studentlance

27. buy medicine
essay
paid ads
organic results
Search engine results from Google UK (February 2020)

28. Examples from
those links

29. sociology
help
Search engine results from Google UK (February 2020)

30. Disciplines From Which Most Online Contract
Cheating Demand Is Observed
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
Combined results from four previous studies
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. 2012. Dealing with contract cheating: a question of attribution. In
Proceedings of 1st Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics.
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. 2014. An observational analysis of the range and extent of contract
cheating from online courses found on agency websites. In 2014 Eighth International Conference
on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems (CISIS), IEEE, pp.56-63.
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. 2015. Examining contract cheating, essay mill use and academic
misconduct by students on health courses,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323425525_Examining_Contract_Cheating_Essay_Mil
l_Use_and_Academic_Misconduct_by_Students_on_Health_Courses
Lancaster, T. 2016. Are all of our students completing their own work? Examining contract
cheating within the computing discipline. Seminar presented at London Metropolitan University,
United Kingdom.
Methodology
(1) Take top 5 discipline rankings from each study, assign 5 points (most requested) to 1 points
(least requested)
(2) Merge similar categories, total points and rerank
Business and Computing dominated
the previous studies

31. Disciplines Ranked
By Marketing Reach

32. Process
Three measures collected for 19 discipline
essay related terms
1. Number of organic results on page 1
for contract cheating services
2. Number of paid ad results on page 1
for contract cheating services
3. Competition – proportion of search
engine results to number of students
Each measure ranked as low (contract
cheating provides least active), medium,
high (contract cheating providers most
active)
2018 information based on UK
student numbers and from Google UK

33. Does The Marketing Match Demand?
Ranking
(from previous studies)
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
Contract cheating providers can easily
complete analysis like this for themselves
Low competition,
high paying
students
Firms have claimed
visible organic
search positions, but
paid advertising is
possible
Need discipline
specific
interventions
High competition,
organic and paid
results claimed
It is worth
disrupting this
industry

34. Creative Arts and Design
Only one discipline group scored Low on all of Organic Results,
Paid Results, Competition
Are contract cheating providers ready to capitalise on this?

35. Demand For Contract
Cheating Disciplines
i.e. what will students pay for?

36. What Can We See Online?

37. As always,
the offers
are blatant

38. Sample of tweets liked by active contract cheating
providers
= 67,978
Data from 2018
Tweets containing a price point
= 1,579
Tweets containing an academic discipline and a
price point
= 284
Tweets from US users containing a price point
= 448
Tweets from US users containing a price point and
page length (or equivalent)
= 93
i.e. “write my essay on US history” i.e. “write my book report, I will pay $100”
i.e. “write my four lab reports, I will pay $40”
Data
Collection

39. Sample of tweets liked by active contract cheating
providers
= 67,978
Tweets containing a price point
= 1,579
Tweets containing an academic discipline and a
price point
= 284
Tweets from US users containing a price point
= 448
Tweets from US users containing a price point and
page length (or equivalent)
= 93

40. Disciplines With Highest Demand
Ranking Discipline
1 Mathematics
2 English
3 History
4 Statistics
5 Algebra
6 Chemistry
7 Political Science
8 Psychology
9 Calculus
10 Physics
Based on students
indicating they are willing
to pay for assignments in
these disciplines on
Twitter

41. Comparison With Previous Studies
Ranking Previous Observed Requests Twitter Requests
1 Business Mathematics
2 Computing English
3 Health/Medicine/Nursing/Psychology History
4 History/Philosophy Statistics
5 Law Algebra
6 Social Studies Chemistry
7 Accounting/Finance Political Science
8 Humanities Psychology
9 Mathematics Calculus
10 Science/Applied Science Physics
Areas core to
several
disciplines
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/contract
-cheating-requests-blatant-and-wide-ranging

42. Demand For Contract
Cheating Assignment Types

43. What Do Students Willingly Tell
Researchers?
Rank Assignment Type
1 Report
2 Essay
3 Quiz/Multiple Choice Questions
4 Group assignment
5 Programming task
Self-reported results from a survey of 301 students who said they had outsourced at least one assignment
Rowena Harper, Tracey Bretag & Kiata Rundle (2020): Detecting contract
cheating: examining the role of assessment type, Higher Education Research &
Development, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2020.1724899

44. Sample of tweets liked by active contract cheating
providers
= 67,978
Tweets containing a price point
= 1,579
Tweets containing an academic discipline and a
price point
= 284
Tweets from US users containing a price point
= 448
Tweets from US users containing a price point and
page length (or equivalent)
= 93

45. Ranking by Price Per Assignment Type
(i.e. what do students offer to pay?)
Ranking Type
1 Exams
2 Psychology
=3 Lab report
=3 Biology
=5 Philosophy
=5 Law
7 Discussion post
=8 Sociology
=8 Short story
=8 English
Two single highest offers
Take my Maths exam for $100
Take my Political Science exam for $200
Only assignment types which received a minimum of two requests are considered
Median offer = $30 total
Most common offer = $20 total
Although students want Maths and
English assignments, they don’t
offer to pay much for them

46. Sample of tweets liked by active contract cheating
providers
= 67,978
Tweets containing a price point
= 1,579
Tweets containing an academic discipline and a
price point
= 284
Tweets from US users containing a price point
= 448
Tweets from US users containing a price point and
page length (or equivalent)
= 93

47. Pricing Per 1,000 Words
Offers on Twitter (Demand) Fiverr.com Data (2016) (Supply) Freelancer.com Data – India
Only (2016) (Supply)
$33.32 $31.73 $29.94
(pricing has since dropped further)

48. Other Observations
Students are trying
to outsource
through their social
contacts
Most requests are
for core subjects
Discussion forum
posts carry a
premium
Family members
may be the people
making requests

49. Can Academic
Disciplines Learn
From One Another?

50. We need to encourage research and the
development of good practice at discipline
level
We need to encourage sharing of practice
across disciplines

51. A Word Of Warning

52. Should we
model the
creative arts?
https://twitter.com/javi_draws/status/1231825313119842304

53. Your Challenge
Get the messaging out about contract
cheating to your networks and your
discipline groups

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