The presentation discusses the implications of plagiarism and contract cheating for database modules. It provides background on the presenters' research in this area and defines plagiarism and contract cheating. Statistics are presented showing the prevalence of cheating in database assignments from 4-12%. Examples are given of database assignments posted on freelancing websites, some containing real patient medical records, demonstrating how easily database work can be outsourced. Recommendations are provided for ways to detect and prevent cheating, such as tracking student access, using writing style analysis, and modifying assignments to make outsourcing more difficult. The implications of allowing cheating in database modules are said to be serious and warrant concern.

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The Implications of Plagiarism and
Contract Cheating for the
Assessment of Database Modules
Dr. Thomas Lancaster and Robert Clarke
Teaching, Learning and Assessment in Databases
Friday, 3 July 2015

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Background

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Our Role In Academic Integrity Research
Dr. Thomas Lancaster
Senior Lecturer in Computing
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education
Academy
PhD “Effective And Efficient Plagiarism
Detection”
Programme Leader BSc Computer Science
Robert Clarke
Educational Consultant at SCL
Visiting Lecturer/Former Principal Lecturer
30 Years Experience Teaching At BCU
Has Collected Over 25,000 Attempts By
Students Worldwide At Contract Cheating

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Working Definitions
Plagiarism – Student uses the words or ideas of
a third party, without acknowledgement
Contract Cheating – Student uses a third party
to have a bespoke piece of work created for
them, without acknowledgement

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Cheating Is Big Business
Channel 4 Dispatches – 15 June 2015
“Dr. Thomas Lancaster, Britain’s
leading expert on academic
cheating says: ‘The vast majority of
students of course are completely
honest but I’ve seen estimates of
£200 million a year going through
these [essay writing] sites.’ ”
http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/dispatches-investigation-reveals-extent-of-student-plagiarism

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2015 Cheating Scandal In Australia
Four Corners – 21 April 2015
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/04/20/4217741.htm

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https://twitter.com/workmanalice

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Database Cheating – Some Figures
Russell and Cumming (2005)
• Algorithms used to find plagiarism in SQL exercises
• Identified 9% to 12% dishonest answers
McCart and Jarman (2008)
• “Properties” in MS Access databases checked
• Found 4.6% to 6.7% identical creation times
McCart, J. & Jarman, J. (2008). A technological tool to detect plagiarized projects in Microsoft Access. IEEE Transactions on Education,
51(2), pp. 166-173.
Russell, G. and Cumming, A. (2005). On-line assessment and checking of SQL: detecting and preventing plagiarism. In Proceedings of the
Third Higher Education Academy Workshop on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases, Sunderland, UK.

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Contract Cheating In Database Modules
(Sample of 910 Computing
assignments found on
RentACoder.com between
Mar 2004 and December
2006)
• Database – implementation
• Database – design
• Major Project
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.

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Examples From Freelancer.com

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Case Study – Design and Implement

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Design and Implement

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SAP Example

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Relational Modelling

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Project With Deliverables

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SQL Statements From ERD
Hi Guys, I am studying Database
Management Systems and I have
to submit an assignment on
Database.
Specifications (Case Study): It is
an accounting company name
"CQR"
You have to Implement database
based on the provided ER diagram
and Database Schema and Write
SQL Statements to query the
database.

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Mountain View Community Hospital Case Study

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Mountain View Community Hospital
Google Search

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Based on MS Northwind DB

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Solution to Northwind DB

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Other Solutions to Northwind

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Stock Solutions

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Database Search At

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Working Around The Implications

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Some Possible Recommendations (i)
Track student access to database workspaces Monger et al (2009)
Provide strong warnings to students that they are being
tracked
Monger et al (2009)
Develop parsers for database assignments to use with
Moss and JPlag
Use existing database detection solutions (such as
ActiveSQL)
Russell and
Cumming (2005)
Monger, A., Baron, S. and Lu, J. (2009). More on Oracle APEX for teaching and learning. In Proceedings of the Seventh Higher
Education Academy Workshop on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases, Birmingham, UK.
Russell, G. and Cumming, A. (2005). On-line assessment and checking of SQL: detecting and preventing plagiarism. In
Proceedings of the Third Higher Education Academy Workshop on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases,
Sunderland, UK.

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Some Possible Recommendations (ii)
Use “stylometics” to assess the writing
style/development style of students and look for
consistency
Provide students with a pre-populated database with
hidden “track changes” table
Singh (2013)
Compare metrics extracted from the databases, such as
“Creation Date”
McCart and Jarman
(2008)
Develop “Doctupus” like functionality to track student
interaction with databases across a cohort
Doctopus (n.d.)
Khan (2015)
Doctopus (n.d.). Available at http://doctupus.com.
Khan, W. (2015). Plagiarism detection 2.0: detection of contract cheating. International Conference – Plagiarism Across Europe
and Beyond, Brno, Czech Republic.
McCart, J. & Jarman, J. (2008). A technological tool to detect plagiarized projects in Microsoft Access. IEEE Transactions on
Education, 51(2), pp. 166-173.
Singh, A. (2013). Detecting plagiarism in MS Access assignments. Journal of Information Systems Education, 24(3), pp. 177-180.

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Doctupus
Khan, W. (2015). Plagiarism detection 2.0: detection of contract cheating. International Conference – Plagiarism Across Europe
and Beyond, Brno, Czech Republic.
https://vimeo.com/130263579

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Some Possible Recommendations (iii)
Audit all assignment briefs for originality, ease of
outsourcing and anti-cheating measures
Make implementation only a small part of assessment Monger et al (2009)
Require a presentation or viva Monger et al (2009)
Give students individual coursework exercises
Use practical examinations and written examinations in
place of/in addition to coursework
Provide examination questions which are based on the
knowledge gained during coursework production
Nelson et al (2003)
Monger, A., Baron, S. and Lu, J. (2009). More on Oracle APEX for teaching and learning. In Proceedings of the Seventh Higher
Education Academy Workshop on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases, Birmingham, UK.
Nelson, D. Stirk, S., Patience, S. and Green, C. (2003). An evaluation of diverse database teaching curriculum and the impact of
research. In Proceedings of the Workshop on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases, Coventry, UK.

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Possible Application To Final Year
Database Project
Project topics proposed by staff/students reviewed to ensure that
they are original
Project topics provided by students modified, to ensure no off-the-
shelf/translated solutions
Regular monitoring of student progress required - and documented
Final written project report assesses academic skills
Final project requires a practical component
Presentation given on written report (filmed for evidence)
Technical viva on practical component (filmed for evidence)
Assessors kept independent to supervisors

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What Does Allowing Cheating In
Database Modules Lead To?

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Assignment Request
One of multiple assignment
requests posted by “poopie”.

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Poopie’s Provided Details
(Available to the public on RentACoder)
http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/BidRequests/
ShowBidRequest.asp?lngBidRequestId=871381

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Patients’ Oncology Database
http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/BidRequests/ShowBidRequest.asp?lngBidRequestId=419090
Names, addresses and details of 1688
patients

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First Record
Last Record

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These Are Real People
Found using name and
telephone number
searches

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Should We Be Concerned About
The Implications of Plagiarism and
Contract Cheating for Database
Modules?

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Further Resources

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References For Our Contract Cheating
Work
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2015), Contract Cheating – The Outsourcing Of Assessed Student Work, in Handbook of Academic Integrity, Bretag, T. (editor):
SpringerReference.
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2014), An Observational Analysis Of The Range And Extent Of Contract Cheating From Online Courses Found On Agency Websites;
8th International Conference on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems (CISIS 2014), Birmingham City University, UK, July 2014.
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2014), An Initial Analysis Of The Contextual Information Available Within Auction Posts On Contract Cheating Agency Websites,
28th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications, University of Victoria, May 2014
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2014), Using Turnitin As A Tool For Attribution In Cases Of Contract Cheating; 3rd Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, April 2014.
Clarke, R. and Lancaster, T. (2013). Commercial Aspects Of Contract Cheating; 8th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science
Education, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK, July 2013.
Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2012). Dealing With Contract Cheating: A Question Of Attribution; 1st Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Imperial College, London, April 2012.
Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2010). Staff-Led Individualised Assessment – A Case Study; 11th Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Information and
Computer Sciences, Durham University, August 2010.
Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2008). How to Succeed at Cheating Without Really Trying: Five Top Tips for Successful Cheating; 9th Annual Higher Education
Academy Conference in Information and Computer Sciences, Liverpool Hope University, August 2008.
Clarke, R, and Lancaster, T (2007). Establishing a Systematic Six-Stage Process for Detecting Contract Cheating; The Second International Conference on
Pervasive Computing and Applications, Birmingham City University, July 2007.
Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2007). Assessing Contract Cheating Through Auction Sites – A Computing Perspective; 8th Annual Higher Education Academy
Conference in Information and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, August 2007.
Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2007) The Phenomena of Contract Cheating, in Student Plagiarism in an Online World: Problems and solutions, Roberts, T. S. (editor),
Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA: Idea Group Inc.
Clarke, R and Lancaster, T (2006). Eliminating The Successor To Plagiarism? Identifying The Usage Of Contract Cheating Sites; 2nd Plagiarism: Prevention,
Practice and Policy Conference 2006 - Newcastle, UK, June 2006.

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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

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Our Contact Details
Thomas Lancaster
Email: thomas.lancaster@bcu.ac.uk
Website: http://thomaslancaster.co.uk
Twitter: @DrLancaster
Robert Clarke
Email: robert.clarke@bcu.ac.uk