Contract Cheating Providers Pitch Students Over Official University E-Mail
Plus, more legal trouble for Chegg? Plus, NHL star says he cheated on the ACT. Plus, 700+ cheat on Australia's high school exams.
Issue 285
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Essay Mills Using Official University E-Mail to Pitch Students
This isn’t a new development. People and companies selling illicit and illegal cheating services have been in official e-mail and learning management systems for a long time.
The providers often offer discounts or other favors to their cheating clients for access. Or, since cheating students often simply hand over their LMS credentials so cheaters and do academic work directly, the cheating providers often don’t need to trade anything at all.
Nonetheless, the tactic has sprung up again in Australia, at the University of New South Wales, as covered by the Sydney Morning Herald. In this iteration of hawking cheating on official systems, an essay mill sent ads, in Chinese, to students on their .edu e-mail platforms, raising the possibility of implied appropriateness or endorsement for the services. Although frankly, I doubt many students are that stupid. Ninety-nine percent of them have never known a world without e-mail spam and phishing. And they know that buying an essay is not allowed.
Nonetheless, given the real dangers of students using cheating services, allowing cheaters inside the school’s technology platforms is a serious breach.
The Herald interviewed an actual academic integrity expert, Professor Cath Ellis of the University of Sydney:
Ellis said contract cheating providers gained access to student data by pressuring clients to provide them with their student ID and passwords, or offering discounts if they do.
“The value of these IDs to contract cheating providers is immense,” she said.
“They can access a full library, get into learning management systems, get into [the student’s learning management system] Canvas or Moodle. It’s a gold mine – once they’re in there they can access everything, including students’ emails.
The school said, in part:
“Contract cheating undermines academic integrity and remains a significant issue for all education and training institutions, in Australia and abroad. UNSW is at the forefront of detecting the use of contract cheating providers. ”
I do think that UNSW is doing more than most schools to deal with it. As Australia is doing more than most countries.
Still, allowing anyone to use university e-mail to offer illegal services to students is a problem. For the providers, it’s all benefit. As Professor Ellis put it:
These companies are very good at covering themselves with a sheen of legitimacy.
They are.
See also: Chegg, Course Hero, QuillBot, Grammarly, and the rest. They give out scholarships, hire popular athletes and social media stars, entice professors to speak at bogus conferences, sponsor major education events, pay college presidents, and get on college websites as authorized resources. I mean, for all the stars in heaven, Chegg even runs a student writing center (see Issue 180). All to, as Ellis says, cover themselves with a sheen of legitimacy.
It’s a pathetic tactic. It’s doubly pathetic that it works. Many people who know better continue to refuse to believe that these companies sell cheating. Not accidentally, but as a primary business model.
I distracted myself there. Sorry.
The news is that contract cheating providers can and do infiltrate university systems to gain access to potential customers. Like, every day.
More Legal Troubles in the Water for Chegg?
Weeks after a federal judge denied Chegg’s efforts to have an investor lawsuit dismissed (see Issue 280), finding that Chegg likely did benefit from substantial cheating, two things are true.
One, not a single education publication has covered it. To underline, a federal judge has decided that cheating on Chegg was substantial and nationwide, that Chegg knew it, denied it, and profited from it. This was a billion-dollar education company that is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. This feels like big news. But I guess not.
Two, Chegg’s legal troubles may be about to grow even further as a press release from a law firm is seeking plaintiffs for what appears to be a new lawsuit — one to hold Chegg executives accountable for the damage they did to the company by allowing the aforementioned cheating. The release says, in part:
On March 4, 2024, U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss the class action, finding, among other holdings, that extensive communications between Chegg and university officials about cheating on the platform, combined with testimony from former employees [was enough evidence to proceed]
Yes. That happened.
This potential suit and the one cited above, are different from a suit against Chegg in Connecticut (see Issue 279). In that one, Chegg’s lawyers seemed to incredulously deny the idea that Chegg was a cheating company. From Issue 279:
Kristy is Chegg’s lawyer:
"I think what the plaintiff just argued is truly extraordinary," Kristy said. "Their argument, if I heard correctly, is that Chegg's entire business model is dishonest. There are no facts to corroborate that kind of claim."
There are. Plenty. And there are about to be many, many more.
Anyway, if trial lawyers are sharks, there is Chegg chum in the water.
NHL Star: I Cheated the ACT
Frank Vatrano, a known name in the NHL, has admitted that he cheated on the ACT to gain admission to Boston College. He said, on camera:
"Yes, I did. I didn't on the SAT. ACT I did as I was a young kid at the time. Stupid mistake. You know what I mean?"
No one asked me. But that seems a tad embarrassing for the ACT folks.
The good news, I guess, is that Vatrano didn’t get away with it. The NCAA and Boston College got wise and Vatrano could not play hockey, ultimately transferring to the University of Massachusetts. He said:
"I transferred into U Mass January of 2013. And then I still had to go to the NCAA because they were hit me with. There's a transfer penalty, and then they hit me with the cheating penalty."
And:
"So I got a year and a half suspension from the NCAA. So I sat out 13 ... I didn't play hockey for two years."
I say again — good for the NCAA (see Issue 172). And Boston College.
But, at the same time, I kind of hate this story because, though Vatrano went through the wringer a bit at the time, he’s now a high-profile star on a three-year, $11 million contract to play hockey. And I know it will never happen but the NHL or his team, the Anaheim Ducks, could send an easy and powerful message about fairness and integrity if they sat him down for a game or three.
More Than 700 Students Suspected of Cheating High School Exit Exams in Australia
Local news coverage has a story that more than 700 exiting high school students in Australia have been flagged for cheating on their standard final exams.
The headline is pretty straight forward:
New Data Reveals Over 700 Students Were Caught Cheating In HSC Exams
The local news source says, in a bit of provocation:
Which presumably means the rest were smart enough to get away with it.
Yikes.
This part is worth having on the record:
New data from the NSW Education Standards Authority show that the number of students caught cheating in their HSC year has jumped by 29 per cent since 2019 with methods including plagiarising, mobile phone usage and unauthorised notes.
And while the majority of offences were in relation to take home assessments, 138 timed exams were breached in 2023.
Up 29% and mostly on take-home assessments.
I like to repeat things.
And in a surprise to absolutely no one:
ChatGPT emerged as the cheaters' weapon of choice
Personally, I’d prefer to see stories such as this one — with a good number of students being caught for misconduct — than see nothing about it at all. At least everyone knows that someone is watching, checking. That’s unquestionably quite good.