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An Observational Analysis of the Range and Extent of Contract Cheating from Online Courses Found on Agency Websites

LANCASTER, Thomas and Clarke, Robert (2014) An Observational Analysis of the Range and Extent of Contract Cheating from Online Courses Found on Agency Websites. In: 8th International Conference on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems, 2-4 July 2014.

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Abstract or description

Although online courses can provide access to higher education through e-learning systems which would not otherwise be available for students, they also pose challenges for academic integrity. Paramount to this is contract cheating, where students have been observed paying other people to complete work for them to complete their online courses. This paper analyses attempts by students at contract cheating using Transtutors.com, which is a billed as a site for homework support. A sample of 174 online assignments found on Transtutors.com are analysed and traced back to 17 online universities. Assignments from online institutions are demonstrated to be a particular problem for contract cheating detectives, since notifying staff at those institutions of attempts by their students to cheat has proved to be difficult or impossible. The paper concludes by looking at the wider issues posed by online contract cheating and the opportunities for automated detection within this field.

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords: contract cheating, academic integrity, academic misconduct, online learning,e-learning
Faculty: School of Computing and Digital Technologies > Computing
Event Title: 8th International Conference on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems
Event Dates: 2-4 July 2014
Depositing User: Thomas LANCASTER
Date Deposited: 03 Jul 2017 13:16
Last Modified: 24 Feb 2023 13:48
URI: https://eprints.staffs.ac.uk/id/eprint/3613

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