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This research presentation focuses on the financial market behind contract cheating, exposing the scale of the problem of students having original work produced which they hand in as if they had written it for themselves. The research is based around over 19,000 attempts by students to cheat collected by the presenters alongside recent external investigations including one associated with Times Higher Education. The presentation is intended to raise awareness amongst academics of the scale and problem of contract cheating, original work which cannot be detected by current plagiarism detection solutions such as Turnitin.
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Cutting The Cost Of Essay WritingExamining The Financial Market Behind
Contract Cheating
Thomas Lancaster & Robert ClarkeBirmingham City University
RESCON 2013Tuesday 17 December 2013
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Who Are We?
Dr. Thomas Lancaster
Senior Lecturer in ComputingPhD “Effective And Efficient Plagiarism Detection”Programme Leader BSc Computer ScienceLeader of Innovations in Computing Education Group
Robert Clarke
Educational ConsultantVisiting Lecturer/Former Principal Lecturer30 Years Experience Teaching At BCUCollected 19,000 Attempts at Contract Cheating
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This Activity Happens At BCU…
Business cards distributed outside City Centre Campus during Induction Week
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Students Pay For Assessed Work
Post your homework for free and wait for answers from teachers. Most likely, more than one teacher will answer your question. You will be able to see a preview of the answers and purchase the one that seems the best for you.
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Contract Cheating
Contract cheating occurs when a student has original work produced for them, which they then submit for academic creditSince this is original bespoke work, this cheating will not be detected as
plagiarised when running student submissions through Turnitin
Our research studies, published since 2006, focus mainly on students using agency sites, where workers competitively bid to complete work for students
Also observed contract cheating delivered by Private Tutors, friends and family, through essay mills etc.
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Contract Cheating Study Conducted With Times Higher Education
“Essay Mills: University Course Work To Order”10 October 2013
Five page undergraduate essay (history), upper second standard
£70 (lower end)£160 (higher end)
“Premier” writing service - £50 an hourPostgraduate dissertation – 25,000 words, £2,800
Estimate provided of around 11,500 essays written by essay mills for UK students every year
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/essay-mills-university-course-work-to-order/2007934.fullarticle
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Contract Cheating Quality Study Conducted With BBC News
“When Essays For Sale Become Contract Cheating”
Three assignments produced by essay mills, paid for by the BBCQuality assessed by Robert ClarkeTwo essays (both cost £70)One judged “weak”, one judged 2:1
One computer programming assignment (at £125)Assessed as “rubbish”
However, all purchased work considered passable
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20298237
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Our Database Of Eight Years Of Visible Contract Cheating Data
ODESK
TRANSTUTORS
OTHER
LIVEPERSON
SCRIPTLANCE
ESSAYBAY
GETACODER
VWORKER
FREELANCER
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000
29
45
105
216
294
725
1289
5468
10558
Postings by Agency Mar 2005 – Jun 2013Total of 18,729 detected items
Number of postings
Clarke, R. and Lancaster, T. (2013), Commercial Aspects Of Contract Cheating, ITiCSE 2013, Canterbury, United Kingdom
Freelancer (which has since incorporated vWorker)
main agency sites examinedeasy to searchgive most details of usersactively tracking sub-contractors
vWorker (which incorporated RentACoder)
had a “no homework” policybut homework could be concealed
inside private auctions
Kasamba (Liveperson)“tutorial” site
Student Of Fortune + Transtutors
sells homework solutions
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What Subjects Do Students Cheat On?
R European Langs, Lit & related
P Mass Comms and Documentation
W Creative Arts & Design
F Physical Sciences
K Architecture,Build & Plan
H Engineering
M Law
G Mathematical & Comp Sci
Q Linguistics, Classics & related
C Biological Sciences
X Education
B Subjects allied to Medicine
V Hist & Philosophical studies
L Social Studies
N Business & Admin studies
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2012), Dealing with Contract Cheating: A Question of Attribution, 1 st HEA STEM Conference April 2012, London, United Kingdom
(Sample of 627 “all subject” cases collected on EssayBay over 5 months in 2010, and manually classified by UCAS Subject Category
EssayBay no longer operational, but this is an example of an Agency site exclusively set up for student assignments
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Example Of 25 Days Of Bids Won By A Freelancer Specialising In
Academic Work
Job Title USD AUS GBP
Capstone Task 3 396 245
academic report writing 166 98
Australian Law question 120 74
Bus Report 100 62
statistics..... 110 65
Academic Analysis on a company 125 77
New Project2 180 107
Quick critique of 2 short papers 38 23
research report 4500 words 325 193
write a scholarly literature review about (The use of quick response systems (clickers) in education) 105 65
Total Earnings 1009
Mean Per Job 100.9
Earnings Per Day 40.36
sdk2788 on Freelancer .com
Note the varied selection, including contributing a staged task to a capstone project (equivalent of BSc Final Year Project)
sdk2788 is also active on other agency sites, so earnings figure is likely under-represented
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Are There Victims If We Ignore Contract Cheating?
An Assignment For A Nuclear Engineer
“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”
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Some Recommendations For BCU Academics
Consider that a group of technologically savvy students are now taking your assignmentsReview the literature base on contract cheating and plagiarismActively look for your assignment specifications onlineCheck that students understand their submitted coursework (e.g. through viva-voces exams and tests depending on understanding the coursework)Inform students that you are aware of contract cheating, and use the BCU academic misconduct processes
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Further Resources
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For More Information
Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_cheating
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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Upcoming Introductory Workshop
Contract Cheating Within The Computing Discipline Workshop
Workshop funded by the Higher Education Academy STEM discipline
Thursday 13 March 2014Birmingham City University
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2013/13_March_Computing_Contract_Birmingham
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Our Contact Details
Thomas LancasterEmail: [email protected]: http://thomaslancaster.co.ukTwitter: @DrLancaster
Robert ClarkeEmail: [email protected]
