Technology is Mutating Traditional Misconduct
Plus, SUNY's Rockland Community College and Course Hero. Again. Plus, ProctorU buys test centers.
Issue 133
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New research: Technology is Increasingly Mutating Traditional Forms of Academic Misconduct
In Issue 129 I mentioned new academic integrity research out of Scotland. I said I’d not read it yet but that I would. I still haven’t; the actual research is an ambitious 58 pages. I’ll get there.
But the authors of the work - Richard Kjellgren and Dr. Niall Hamilton-Smith of University of Stirling and Dr. Alistair Fraser of University of Glasgow - also put together a really great summary. It’s eight pages. That, I did read.
To review, the research centered on finding and reviewing ads for cheating providers, mostly essay writing services. Here are some highlights of the research - or the highlights of the highlights of the research more accurately.
The authors write:
It is clear, from both our qualitative and online data, that contract cheating poses a serious threat to both academic integrity and students themselves. Indeed, our findings highlight the enduring nature of contract cheating … Similarly, our findings also suggest contract cheating services are widely available and easily accessible.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before - contract cheating services are widely available and easily accessible.
I found this to be interesting and, I sense, not well understood. The summary also says:
There was also a recognition that technology is playing an increasingly important role in mutating more traditional forms of academic misconduct, such as plagiarism. Some quite innovative approaches involving translation software and plagiarism were highlighted as a recent issue, or students writing assignments in their native language to then have them automatically translated into English and edited by a professional proofreader.
This particular tactic - commonly called spinning - has been around for some time. But the larger point is that cheating is a living activity. It evolves. It is evolving. By the time anti-cheating technology catches one thing or professors learn to spot something else, a new way to cheat has broken out. Using a plagiarism detection system, for example, is essential but insufficient. Today, students are cheating in ways we will learn about next year.
Another bit from the research that is more reminder than news - cheating providers lie. As an example:
Some websites are using deceptive or outright fraudulent marketing techniques, such as fake TrustPilot ratings, or displaying fake popular media coverage (such as being featured in Forbes).
Cheating providers also know full well how to capitalize on existing narratives to rationalize and sell their services. For example, the authors say:
they frequently use emotional cues (e.g. stress, anxiety, pressure) to create a sense of empathy and justification for using their services. Similarly, they were also the only observed group that quite explicitly (and falsely) claimed their services are not to be considered cheating and that using their services will not violate academic misconduct policies.
True. They do that. We’ve shared many examples.
People and companies that sell cheating products and services are not dumb. They understand their customers and they lie and they innovate and they spend money on marketing.
I’ll get to the larger research paper soon.
Rockland Community College President Loves Course Hero
Michael A. Baston is the President of Rockland Community College, which is in New York and part of the State University of New York (SUNY). And he apparently loves cheating provider Course Hero.
Baston has spoken at Course Hero events in the past, probably twice if I remember correctly. His school’s spokesperson famously refused to say whether he was being paid to appear at the event(s) and declined to comment on cheating at all. The school also declined to release any data on academic misconduct (see Issue 34).
Anyway, Baston has now penned a byline article for Times Higher Ed in which he says that his school is “structuring an experiment” with Course Hero. No, really. He wrote:
we’re structuring an experiment with online learning platform Course Hero. Together, we are testing how supplemental support for both teachers and students may help to scaffold learning and provide critical resources to students when and where they need it most.
That sure reads like Rockland Community College is in some kind of official project with a well-known cheating company. It’s not unheard of, true. I think Chegg still provides tools to the writing lab at Purdue, for example.
But it’s a bad, bad look.
Sure as anything, a student at Rockland has been caught using Course Hero to inappropriately, illicitly access course materials such as tests and previously written essays. Or used Course Hero to get on-demand test answers (see Issue 97). Either one would violate the school’s academic integrity policy.
That student may not understand why it’s acceptable for the school president to stand with Course Hero, why the school itself can “structure an experiment” with Course Hero but he or she will face sanctions for using Course Hero in their classes.
Honestly, I am not sure I understand it either.
For what it’s worth, President Baston’s article is about collaboration. The title is:
For students’ sake, we shouldn’t be too proud to seek collaboration
Few people - if any at all - see collaboration negatively. Collaboration is not a problem. In this case, who you choose to collaborate with is.
ProctorU Acquires Scantron Test Centers, Capabilities
ProctorU, one of the largest providers of remote exam proctoring, announced this week that it acquired the “Certification and Licensure business” of Scantron.
The move is significant in that it seems to give ProctorU - and/or parent company Meazure Learning - physical test centers in addition to their online capacities. The release also mentions the acquisition of:
related assessment software, exam development, psychometric, and client services and solutions expert teams.