Thomas Lancaster, an associate dean at Staffordshire University and one of the UK’s leading experts on essay cheating, said that while universities had anti-plagiarism software to detect copying of academic texts, they could not prevent the process of contract cheating, where students employ ghostwriters to complete new assignments.
“We think this is a substantial problem affecting universities, that students can go and pay other people to do their assignments for them,” he said.
I'm honestly not sure how common a problem this is at my university. Most of our students are pretty cash-strapped, which makes it seem unlikely that they have the money to spend on this sort of thing, especially for the sort of assignments I create (very particular requirements, lots of required scaffolding/preparatory steps, required detailed interaction with other students' work in online classes). But a few might try, especially in classes in which they feel particularly at sea (e.g. my writing class for students with mostly technical skills/inclinations).Are any of you seeing much of this sort of cheating? If so, have you identified any red flags that signal its possible/likely presence?
Fewer than 5% of the end-of-semester term papers I get in my general-ed, intro-astronomy class for non-majors are competently written, much less well researched. I almost never award "A"s. Most of what I do get are worse than I could do in 9th grade, or even 6th grade, and I still have samples, and I've checked. So, if they're plagiarizing, it sure doesn't do them much good.
ReplyDeleteStudents will pay students to do their homework for them here.
ReplyDeleteI'm told that it's 50 dollars for an essay. Which tells you what the academic standards are.
I think the UK's "crackdown" on cheating websites will be about as effective as the "war on drugs" in the U.S. The supply and demand are far greater than articles like this (or this) reveal. And the articles don't even mention the numerous truly dedicated student impostors.
ReplyDeleteIt's understandable why O.J. wanted to buy a "Not Guilty" verdict, but I am sometimes quite puzzled or amused by the various reasons for students' avoiding their work--and, unfortunately, the results of cheating can be worse than anybody expected.
It's an arms race. There's lots of cheating at every school. Harvard, BYU, Annapolis, Brookdale Community College, you name it. Maybe not so much at Deep Springs College, but I'll bet good money that it exists there in some form.
ReplyDeleteI've had one that I was 99% sure about -- not that she was buying papers, which our students can't afford to do, but that she was having her cousin the English teacher write them for her. The big red flags were 1) her writing on out-of-class essays was much, much better than the nearly incomprehensible mush she turned in on exams; 2) she looked totally blank when I asked her about specific claims in the essay; and 3) she admitted having help from her cousin. She denied, however, that the cousin did any actual writing, although I could not get a coherent answer out of her as to what this help did entail.
ReplyDeleteWithout absolute proof, however, there wasn't much I could do about it. She got her C, and, eventually, a degree in "public health education," which is our university's catchall major for anyone who couldn't hack it in nursing school. I really hope she is not actually in charge of educating anyone about health.
A little while back, a colleague of mine had a student submit a paper that was knitted together from the free sample paragraphs of several different papers (all on the same topic) being offered by term paper selling websites.
ReplyDeleteI doubt this type of plagiarism would be easy to catch unless an instructor has the time to interview the student and assess their knowledge. With online classes, especially MOOCs, that could be too time-consuming. As FP mentioned, if a student turns in incomprehensible mush the rest of time that's a good indicator something is amiss. Maybe a grading standard that inlcudes something like is able to articulate basic points in hir papers. Have a short interview (Skype for onliners). I would also be sneaky. If zhe claims in the paper that hamsters are the best mammals ask why zhe said gerbils are.
ReplyDeleteI always require at least 50% of the grade be in exams. That quashes the effect ok.
ReplyDelete