Trend in Adult Education: Contract Cheating

(Royalty-free Photo from PixaBay): https://pixabay.com/photos/lying-promises-deception-dishonesty-1562272/

The abrupt shift to online learning at the start of the pandemic highlighted and exacerbated the rise of contract cheating, a broad term used to describe situations where third parties, often commercial websites or paid individuals, contribute part or the whole of a student's work. Prior to the pandemic, I'd largely turned a blind eye to the phenomenon as I taught courses that tended to be heavy on in-person testing, with at-home homework assignments making up a relatively small portion of student marks. I took the view that cheating on homework was ultimately self-defeating as students would do poorly on tests. During the first year of the pandemic, several of my courses were completely online and I wrote tests with custom-written questions, but found that several students consistently solicited solutions to questions from websites like Chegg.com which could turn around solutions to test problems well within the allotted timeframe for the test. The phenomenon has not gone away this term as, despite giving in person tests, students continue to seek solutions to homework and labs from Contract Cheating websites and it's a problem that I and my peers have yet to crack. 

I've chosen to share a presentation given by Dr. Sarah Eaton to the neighbouring University of Victoria, that has been widely discussed at Camosun. Dr. Eaton is a faculty member at the University of Calgary with a research interest in ethics and academic integrity.

https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/TeachAnywhere/wp-content/uploads/sites/4913/2021/04/Handout-2021-04-13-Eaton-University-of-Victoria.pdf 

Eaton notes that contract cheating is as massive commercial endeavor, worth an estimated $15 Billion USD, with much of the growth in contract cheating coming from large, multifaceted companies that maintain a multitude of online storefronts. Many of these operations are interwoven as in services that offer online writing help which harvest student submission to re-sell as completed essays through another venue. 

Contract cheating organizations have aggressively marketed to students during the pandemic presenting themselves as benevolent businesses helping students along their educational pathways, but the reality is that they are largely predatory. The organizations show no regard for academic misconduct consequences suffered by students. As well, particularly devious organizations may bully or blackmail students to continue to patronize the site less their academic misconduct be exposed. 

So what can faculty do to address contract cheating and promote academic integrity? Dr. Eaton offers several suggestions, which I've summarized here.

1. Have a continuous and open dialogue with students about academic integrity in the classroom and be transparent about expectations of assignments, policies and procedures around misconduct. Educate students about the predatory nature of contract cheating organizations. 

2. Design courses so that students aren't tempted to use contract cheating websites. This can include reducing the value of individual at-home assessments so that none are 'high stakes', avoiding the use of pre-made test banks and randomizing tests.

3. Assist students in becoming more independent learners. Give them timely feedback that promotes confident mastery of material and help them develop time management skills.

4. Involve multiple stake holders at institutions to foster a community that supports academic integrity and serve as role models for ethical behaviour. 

I feel that none of these suggestions will completely eliminate contract cheating and academic integrity violations, but the situation can at least be ameliorated. In my own classroom, I'll continue to have a large number of marks associated with in person activities such as labs and tests, but will perhaps increase the frequency of assessments so that no one assessment is too high stakes and too stressful to students. 

In my first reflective writing piece for this course, I've already identified the fact that the current cohort of learners that I'm teaching will require some guidance in developing as independent learners. I plan to make more space in class for dialog about study skills, planning and academic integrity and will hopefully foster a more open discussion about this so that students feel more comfortable talking to myself and their peers about issues of academic integrity.