"Sophisticated Cheating Network" in Australia
Plus, a great article on integrity policies. Plus, more on that EY cheating. Plus, is Chegg being sold?
Issue 132
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Australia’s “Major Cheating Rings” and “Sophisticated Cheating Network”
The Herald-Sun (AUS) has a long story (subscription required) about cheating at Australian universities with the headline:
Major cheating rings busted at universities
The sub-head is:
Hundreds of university students have been busted paying others to do their assignments as part of a “sophisticated cheating network” scheme.
Hundreds. No surprise whatsoever.
In the story, the paper found ads on social media for essay writers. Again, no surprise. The paper contacted the writers/companies, pretending to be students. The advertisers:
quoted anywhere between $90 and $240 for a 3000-word research essay with a plagiarism report and a bibliography.
That’s $60 to $165 in US dollars.
The story continues with information about specific universities:
Just weeks ago, Monash University discovered a “sophisticated contract cheating network” operating among its students.
Two hundred and thirty eight contract cheating incidents were reported at Deakin [University] in 2021.
It continues:
Specific contract cheating data for Swinburne [University] was unavailable, but 322 students were either warned or disciplined for cheating and plagiarism in 2021.
It also notes that, unfortunately:
Victoria University would not provide their data
What’s most interesting about this story is that it’s in Australia, which may lead the world in its social awareness of academic cheating as well as legislation about it. Australia was one of the first jurisdictions to ban contract cheating.
Noting this, the article says national regulators are working with social media companies to “remove posts and accounts promoting or offering commercial cheating services.” It says some 300 such posts have been removed already.
The Herald-Sun story continues:
People running the [cheating] service on a commercial scale face up to two years’ jail and a $110,000 fine, with a national crackdown on the most popular sites expected in the coming weeks.
A national crackdown coming? Interesting.
I’m excited to see what that means and whether it gives the larger scale cheating providers a pass by focusing on essay writing alone.
EY Cheating Follow Up
As noted in the last “The Cheat Sheet,” the accounting and auditing firm EY was fined $100 million for allowing its auditors to cheat on required ethics exams.
The fine received ample coverage and here are a few parallel or related stories:
This writer in India says there’s a “simple technical fix” to the EY cheating - randomize the questions. Sure, but no. Keeping the same exam questions in the same order year after year is exam malpractice. But randomizing questions helps curb some types of cheating but not others. That alone won’t “fix” anything. The author is right that the bigger issue is the culture that found cheating permissible in the first place.
This website says the whole EY cheating thing came to be known because of a whistleblower. Yikes. Exam integrity protocols on this test were so lax or so completely absent that auditors cheated year after year and no one noticed. Honestly - what’s the point of an exam like that? Why bother? I mean no wonder people cheated; it was clear that no one cared.
My favorite though - and another entry into the highly, highly coveted Academic Integrity Quote of the Year Award contest - is this article and headline from Bloomberg Columnist Matt Levine who says, “Don’t Cheat on the Ethics Exam.” That ought to do it, thanks Matt. Still, it’s a pretty good read on why this cheating actually happened. Again, the bottom line is no one cared.
Strong Article on Cheating Policies, Adjustments and Consequences
Meena Jha, of Information Communications Technology (ICT), CQUniversity Australia (Central Queensland, Australia), has a piece in The Conversation about her research on academic integrity policies. I have not looked at the research directly yet, but the article has several parts that are worthy of elevation.
Jha basically says that, even though many universities moved instruction and assessment online to deal with Covid, few - if any - changed their academic integrity policies. I buy that. Further, she says, that since many schools plan to keep courses online, the policies remain unchanged. I buy that too.
She writes:
Students say they think cheating is easier online. There is some evidence it increased with the shift online.
I’d say that the evidence is overwhelming and largely uncontested, but fine.
She says:
Yet our research, covering 41 Australian universities, has found little evidence of changes in their academic integrity policies (which apply to all courses) and practices (which may differ from subject to subject) to counter these problems.
I absolutely buy that.
Here’s a very important part. In her research, Jha says:
Some of our respondents expressed concern that current policies aren’t effective. A particular concern is the time and effort it takes to prepare a case of misconduct against a student.
That’s very accurate. Even if good policies exist, the process and cost on the teacher/school side are substantial. Knowing this, many don’t bother.
To combat the increased cheating online, Jha repeats the advice we hear most often - that teachers should “develop new types of questions.” Yet, very importantly, she correctly notes that:
these approaches seem invariably to involve more work for the academics. Further, they appeared unlikely to achieve the integrity typically offered by face-to-face supervised exams.
Exactly. This “change how you test” solution is more work and also doesn’t actually work. You don’t see that very often, true as it is.
The author concludes by noting that, despite massive shifts in classes and assessments being delivered online:
Nobody told us their universities are amending their policies or procedures to better protect academic integrity in these circumstances.
Again, this is in Australia which is, by any reasonable measure, way ahead of most countries on academic integrity issues. Not entirely and not perfectly - but at least they’re asking the questions. Most places don’t even do that much.
Finally, a somewhat personal note on this article. Jha wrote on online exam proctoring:
The use of software to automatically monitor students during online exams, known as remote proctoring, is increasingly common. Intuitively, this technology appears to have advantages for detecting cheating. However, many have raised concerns about both the ethics and efficacy of these systems.
I left that last link in because it goes to a story I wrote which in no way raised concerns about the efficacy of proctoring. It’s slightly disturbing to see it cited that way.
Still the Jha article is important in understanding what schools are - but mostly are not doing - to address online academic misconduct. Even in Australia.
Rumor Mill: India’s Byju Considering Acquisition of Cheating Provider Chegg
It’s been in the wind for weeks that India’s education behemoth Byju is considering acquiring cheating provider Chegg, along with the OPM company 2U. Or maybe just 2U alone.
The 2U thing may happen and the Chegg rumor is starting to draw token press coverage. So, in the universe of academic integrity, it’s probably worth noting that Chegg may be acquired.
To be clear - no one has confirmed that such consideration is real. And personally, I don’t believe it. I find it difficult to believe that an education company would be confused about the business Chegg is actually in, which is to say the cheating kind.
Knowing this, it’s unclear why any reasonable company would want that kind of stain. Moreover, with increased scrutiny and growing legal jeopardy tied to contract cheating globally - England, Ireland, Australia and so on - Byju would be wise to avoid such a mess.
But since we’re here, it’s also worth a somewhat gleeful note that most of the coverage about this rumor, as well as the rumors themselves, put Chegg’s purchase valuation at about $2 billion. And while that’s an obscene valuation for a cheating company, Chegg was market-valued at more than $14 billion not even 18 months ago.
Maybe that makes Chegg a value - a deal worth taking on Chegg’s bad products and reputation and increasingly likely legal problems. More on this to come. Perhaps.