Cheating Cases Almost Double at Oxford
Plus, Course Hero gives "grants" to 51 professors. Plus, school President who hugged Course Hero gets a new job.
Issue 140
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Cheating Cases Nearly Double at Oxford
According to some enterprise reporting by The Telegraph - which has been covering misconduct exceptionally well recently - the University of Oxford saw cases of misconduct almost double when the pandemic and remote learning set in.
This is of course, not news. Cheating cases have increased many-fold at nearly every institution for which we have data. Seriously, if I were keeping score it would be like 142-2.
But this time it’s Oxford, one of the premier education institutions and brands in the world, so it is news. I mean, I made it the headline.
According to the paper:
The number of investigations related to academic misconduct, such as cheating, malpractice and plagiarism, rose from 35 in 2018-19, the last academic year before the pandemic, to 68 in 2019-20 and 77 in 2020-21.
Honestly, 77 seems ridiculously low. And I don’t even know what to think about 35. Even so, I suppose it’s the trendline that’s important - an all-to-common spike in cheating cases that correlates to the pandemic.
Continuing:
The mathematical, physical and life department had no investigations in the last year before the pandemic, but 21 cases across the following two years.
Really? None at all? Do we think that’s because no one was cheating?
Further:
only eight cases of suspected academic misconduct were held up as a breach, representing a fraction of the 55,000 exams sat, of which the vast majority were open-book exams.
Alright, now you’re just joking. Fifty-five thousand online, mostly open book exams and you have eight cheating incidents? That’s simply not credible. Not at Oxford. Not anywhere.
The school said:
that its students were asked to sign up to an honour code for open-book and closed-book online exams. The code requires students to confirm that the submitted work is entirely their own.
My goodness. I don’t know whether that’s more funny or sad. Funny, I guess, because that bit is followed immediately in the story by:
Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “Online exams are a green light to those who are prepared to cheat. We want young people who are honest to be rewarded for their honesty. Exams which lack the integrity of being secure will undermine the whole education system.”
Which is followed immediately by:
A spokesman for Oxford University said: “Oxford is committed to the highest standards of assessments, regardless of the format they take.
Seriously, that’s funny. And sad.
Of note, the article also mentions an increase in cheating cases at University College London:
The move to online assessments appeared to have led to a large increase in academic misconduct cases in 2020-21, minutes from a meeting of the university’s education committee last year said. The committee noted there were 57 cases of collusion and 42 cases of “contract cheating”, where students pay others to complete their coursework. Cases of contract cheating led to 31 student expulsions from the university.
Wow, 31 expulsions. Maybe I should have started with that.
U.K. Columnist: Cheating is So Bad, Schools Should Stop Online Teaching
Speaking of The Telegraph, a columnist there recently wrote about academic misconduct and the headline is basically the story:
Cheating is rife, students are depressed – universities must end ‘remote learning’
She says, rather correctly:
As soon as schools and universities went online at the start of the pandemic, we all knew that cheating would be rife. Sure enough, every single study has confirmed this
And continues:
But I’m more interested in why even now top universities are apparently turning a blind eye to the cheating, and why, despite this steep rise in exam fraud, many are still holding exams online this summer, and planning to continue with more remote teaching and examinations next year.
First, it’s not that the exams are online by itself that’s the problem - it’s a problem, sure. But when those exams are open book or from a test bank or unproctored, that is the problem.
The writer also provides some details about another U.K. school’s cheating challenges, in addition to mentioning University College London (see above):
At Durham University most exams were also online this summer and any department seeking in-person exams had to apply for permission. The maths department applied for an exemption after 46 students were caught cheating in online exams, according to the university’s student newspaper.
And I want to share this from her column also:
One of the key reasons people cheat is because they can.
Simplified, but not wrong.
Course Hero Gives “Grants” to 51 Teachers
That absurd and supremely unhelpful “summit” that Course Hero hosted with teachers - that’s over, thankfully. More on it to come.
In the meantime, did you know that Course Hero has given a "Grant for Digital Learning” to 51 professors? The list of recipients, with their schools, is in that link.
The grant is $2,000 and, according to the press announcement is to:
celebrate teachers who are reimagining the college experience by leveraging digital tools in unique and impactful ways.
Digital learning tools - sure. The $2,000 is, of course, money paid by students to access cheating materials including the uncompensated intellectual property of professors and their schools - but, hey - two thousand bucks. Amiright?
It’s going to be a challenge, I can imagine, for a teacher to enforce academic integrity rules against Course Hero - which refuses to cooperate with academic integrity inquires, by the way - when that teacher has taken a grant from Course Hero. But did I mention the two grand?
To be clear, again, about what Course Hero is and what it sells - see Issue 42 or Issue 92 or Issue 97 or Issue 106.
Course Hero dumping $100,000 into teaching “grants” and hosting “summits” with teachers is no accident. It’s strategy. The company has also said it’s hiring students as “campus reps” at dozens of schools in the U.S. and Canada (see Issue 103).
Course Hero wants to be legitimate. They want to be seen as a regular, upstanding part of campus and academic life and they are spending money to buy it.
I really do feel for the professors who care about academic integrity, for the Deans and Presidents and alumni, for the administrators who work on this issue every day. I really do.
President With Course Hero Connections Has New Post
Dr. Michael Baston was the President of Rockland College, part of the SUNY system.
At Rockland, President Baston spoke at a Course Hero summit and declined to say whether he’d been compensated. He also declined to address the issue of academic integrity related to Course Hero and his school declined to release information related to cases of academic misconduct (see Issue 34).
Baston also, you may remember (see Issue 133), wrote an article for Inside Higher Ed in which he promoted
an experiment with online learning platform Course Hero.
Anyway, congratulations Cuyahoga Community College (Cleveland) - Dr. Baston is your new President.
Notes: In Issue 138 I’d noted that Australia’s regulatory body, TEQSA, had reportedly assembled a list of 2,200+ contract cheating websites and asked schools to block them. TEQSA also promised that some action against these cheating providers was “imminent.”
I asked TEQSA for that list. They declined, citing, “the sensitive nature of this database.” I am not sure why they’d want to protect the names of blacklisted cheating companies, but OK. That’s fine. I honestly did not expect them to hand it to me.
But TEQSA also said the list was available to:
Australian registered higher education providers or equivalent higher education quality assurance or regulatory agencies with whom we have the appropriate legal undertakings.
So, if you have that TEQSA list or can get it, and are willing to share it, I’d like to see it. And if you’d like to drop in anonymously in my inbox, that would be great. I don’t want to publish it, but I would like to see if any familiar names are on it. Or, worse, not on it.