More Than 300 Caught Cheating Real Estate Exams in Canada
Plus, two notes on ChatGPT. Plus, the NCAA sanctions another athletic program for academic cheating. Plus, International Quick Bites in South Africa, Thailand and India.
Issue 172
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More than 300 Caught in Organized Cheating of Ontario Real Estate Exams
According to news accounts, a government audit of Ontario’s 2021 real estate licensing exam uncovered “large-scale, deliberate and organized misconduct.”
The audit showed that:
315 individuals [were] caught cheating the Humber College Real Estate Education Program, a figure six times greater than has previously been admitted.
As a result of the inquiries, some realtors had their licenses revoked while many had not yet received official licensure status. Still, the reporting shows:
Some of those who lost their license had already been trading real estate, handling down payments and other critical roles in the largest transactions most consumers make in their lifetimes.
The reports say:
The cheaters seemed to exploit elements of Humber’s online examination protocols
Hmm, you really think so?
It’s also of interest to me that, in response to the lapses in the college’s exam security, the school says:
One addition is the requirement for learners to have a second camera to provide a secondary view of the exam environment
And that:
An exam cannot be accessed by the learner until they have completed a series of security checks, including identity verification, room scans to assure the exam environment is appropriate and secure, as well as acknowledgement of the rules of the exam.
Two cameras, room scans, ID checks for a licensure exam.
Educators and schools who actively resist or dismiss exam security measures such as these are not just purposefully undermining the integrity of their own assessments, they are consciously failing to prepare their students for the realities of their careers.
Finally, in attempting to reassure the public, a spokesperson for the school:
asserted that Humber is catching “most cheaters before they are eligible for [licensing] registration.”
Most. Pardon me if I do not feel relieved - expect by the fact that I am not currently buying or selling real estate in Ontario.
Two Bits on ChatGPT, the AI Writer
In Issue 170, I shared some of my thoughts on ChatGPT, the AI writing system that has some academic integrity experts, and considerably more outsiders, worried.
AI gets an A-
Over in the U.K., a news outlet already fed some exam questions to ChatGPT and had them graded - five history questions from the recent GCSE exams, which demonstrate high school level subject competency. The questions and AI answers are in the article.
The result:
Our AI student would have achieved a Grade 7 in their history GCSE — equivalent to a low A grade under the former marking system.
But don’t panic. As mentioned in my notes of last week, the AI simply made stuff up:
ChatGPT also coughed up blatant errors, claiming at one point that Japan, Germany and the Soviet Union never joined the League of Nations. Mr Beale, who marked the answers, said he would have smelled a rat if a student had turned them in.
If an instructor is reading the written material, it would be pretty easy to tell the “student” did not know the information. I am not sure how that merits a “low A” on the GCSE, but that’s a topic for someone else.
Turnitin Says, No Problem
As also mentioned in last week’s notes, it seemed a safe bet that technology designed to detect plagiarism and fraud writing would eventually be able to detect AI-created writing too. And, yes - and probably sooner than you think.
According to Bloomberg, which asked Turnitin about ChatGPT, the company says they got this. A Turnitin spokesperson:
said for now, ChatGPT’s answers should be easily identifiable both by teachers and Turnitin software. The service makes lots of factual errors, and its language model tends to generate linear sentences and pick broad, obvious words, instead of the occasionally narrower vocabulary that a student would select. This creates signals that could be detectable by Turnitin and other anti-plagiarism tools.
Easily identifiable.
NCAA Sanctions Missouri Southern State for Academic Misconduct
The NCAA, the non-governmental regulatory body for college athletics in the U.S., has issued a sanction against Missouri Southern State’s football program for, among other violations, academic fraud.
The academic findings are that:
[a] former assistant coach pressured an enrolled student-athlete to complete coursework for a prospect. The assistant coach threatened to withhold the student-athlete's scholarship if he did not complete the online courses
One athlete completed two online English courses for another student.
The NCAA sanctions include a loss of football scholarships, a fine and other penalties.
This is not the first time the NCAA has whacked a school’s athletic teams for academic cheating (see Issue 130, Issue 136 or Issue 47). In some cases, the NCAA has sent these infraction notices to a school’s accreditor, after which - nothing in particular seems to happen.
I’ve said before and I will repeat - how is it that the NCAA has the power to investigate and sanction an athletic program for academic cheating but no one investigates or sanctions a school’s academic or administrative units for the same or more significant infractions?
And what happens when the NCAA finds academic fraud? The answer, we know, is nothing. Nothing happens to the schools. The teams get bruised or punished. But the schools - the ones who are providing the academics and the oversight - nothing. Like it never even happened.
If accreditors, which are quasi-governmental academic regulators, cared half as much about academic cheating as the NCAA does, things would be very different. But they don’t. They just don’t care.
International Quick Bites
A paper in South Africa has opined that authorities should “name and shame” the teachers who participated in the recent cheating rings (see Issue 171). “The teachers, who have breached the code of ethics, are the real culprits and should also be banned from teaching for life,” the article says.
Also in South Africa, in response to the recent cheating scandal, a government leader has called for a total ban on cell phones in schools. In that cheating scandal, students and teachers are accused of using WhatsApp to share answers.
In Thailand, charges will be filed against those who may have facilitated cheating on police academy entrance exams. Reports are that “73 exam takers caught cheating have been disqualified so far.” Police.
A high court in India has reportedly summoned school and government leaders to appear after a major cheating scandal. The scandal involves “mass cheating” in law school admissions tests. Lawyers. Video of the exam in question shows, “that a candidate was using his mobile phone in the examination hall and in certain rooms, the candidates were not only consulting each other but were also exchanging the answer sheets in the presence of the invigilator.”
Class Note
Reminder, it’s almost time for the Best/Worst in academic integrity for the year - like I did for 2021. I’m not sure what the categories will be, but if you have suggestions for them, or for the winners and non-winners, please send them in. A reply e-mail reaches me. I received a few already - thank you.