by Thomas Lancaster -

Establishing a Systematic Six-Stage Process for Detecting Contract Cheating

Clarke, R, & Lancaster, T (2007). Establishing a Systematic Six-Stage Process for Detecting Contract Cheating, The Second International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Applications (ICPCA07), Birmingham City University, July 2007.

This paper proposes a systematic six-stage process that tutors can use to detect students who are contract cheating. Contract cheating is where students have original work completed for them and submit it, without acknowledgement, for academic credit. A background to the problem is presented along with the current problems of preventing and detecting contract cheating. Examples of how pervasive computing techniques have made it easier for students to cheat are given. A description of how contract cheating is currently detected is presented, with shortcomings of these methods detailed. The paper formalises new six-stage contract cheating detection process developed to parallel approaches taken in the plagiarism literature.

Establishing a Systematic Six-Stage Process for Detecting Contract Cheating

by Thomas Lancaster -

Assessing Contract Cheating Through Auction Sites – A Computing Perspective

Lancaster, T & 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

The paper studies the use the RentACoder Web site to contract cheat by Computing students. RentACoder is an outsourcing service for computer work which operates under auction principles. Contract cheating is where students have assessed work completed for them on their behalf. The work is original, so not will be detected by the regular anti-plagiarism mechanisms that look for shared commonality. The paper describes the background to contract cheating and discusses a catalogue of 910 bid requests collected by the authors over two and a half years. The UK is seen to supply them with over 25% of contract cheating bid requests. This is largely composed of students outsourcing Java programming assignments; substantial projects are highlighted as a concern. Trends are seen to exist for other countries but are not the same as those identified for UK students.

Assessing Contract Cheating Through Auction Sites – A Computing Perspective

by Thomas Lancaster -

The Phenomena of Contract Cheating

Lancaster, T & 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.

This chapter discusses the issue of contract cheating. This is where students have work completed on their behalf which is then submitted for academic credit. A thorough background to this phenomena is presented. A list of the main contract cheating Web sites is also given. These contract cheating sites are placed into four classifications: auctions sites, discussion forums, essay mills and feed aggregators. Approaches are proposed for tutors to set assigned work that is less susceptible to contract cheating than standard assessments. The chapter concludes by arguing that urgent attention needs to be paid to contract cheating to avoid it becoming an educational problem of the same scale as plagiarism.

The Phenomena of Contract Cheating