The Best and Worst of 2021
Issue 2021
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“The Cheat Sheet” in Review, 2021
The first “The Cheat Sheet” went out January 23, 2021 - so we covered less than a full year. In all, we churned out some 82 Issues, counting this one. I reckon that’s about 65,000 words on the state of academic integrity this past year, though not all of them were mine. That’s a little more than 200 stories.
You’re welcome.
Or do I owe you an apology?
Thanks for reading and listening and caring. Thank you also to those of you who sent suggestions and comments for this edition.
And here, as threatened, are the best and worst bits from “The Cheat Sheet” from 2021.
72 Schools, 49 Weeks
Below are, near as I can figure and finger-count, 72 institutions of higher education that disclosed or discussed academic misconduct issues since January 23, 2021. I excluded high schools and professional accreditors.
All, or nearly all, reported significant increases in cheating reports. For most, I added a word or two about the situation, taken directly from the school or from direct reporting sources.
Seventy-two is not nearly all of them. These are just the ones I saw and those that shared information. As noted repeatedly, some schools don’t. As such, this is not a shame list. I am happy that these schools are talking about the challenges of misconduct. We can’t do anything if we don’t know anything.
I will leave it to you to determine what, if anything, 72 schools in about 49 weeks means.
University of Houston (double), University at Albany (pervasive), U.S. Air Force Academy (widespread), New Jersey Institute of Technology (massive, Chegg), University of Manitoba (+700%), Texas A&M (large-scale), Texas State University, Franklin & Marshall College (universally easy and rewarding), California State University LA, North Carolina State University (3x), Purdue University (Chegg), Binghamton University (stark increase), University of Oregon (Chegg), University of British Columbia (Chegg), Quinnipiac University (Chegg, Course Hero), Franklin College (on the rise), University of Minnesota (Chegg and Course Hero), Thompson Rivers University (an explosion), University of Saskatchewan (almost double), University of Regina (an increase), University of Missouri, Duke University (more than doubled, Chegg), University of Toronto (increased), Aberdeen University, Robert Gordon University, Dartmouth University Medical School, Ohio State University (more than double, Chegg, Course Hero), Trinity College at University of Oxford (widespread), U.S. Military Academy at West Point, University of Cape Town (Chegg), University of Witwatersrand (Chegg), University of KwaZulu-Natal (Chegg), Wits University (Chegg), University of Crete, Miami University (OH) (increase, Chegg), Deakin University (essay mills), The Queensland University of Technology (a cheating plague), Bristol University, Southern University (nursing) (widespread cheating), Houston Baptist University, Dartmouth College (higher than normal), Fordham University Gabelli School of Business (widespread academic dishonesty, Chegg), University of California at Berkeley (Chegg, +230%), University of North Carolina, Wilmington (Chegg, Course Hero), Stanford University (significant increase), Florida State University, University of Auckland (Chegg), University of Southern California (inundated, +115%), Stellenbosch University, University of Wisconsin-Madison (nearly doubled), Columbus State Community College (higher cases), United States Naval Academy, Virginia Commonwealth University (3x), University of Georgia (more than doubled), St. Mary's College of California (doubled), Middle Tennessee State (+79%), University of Canterbury (+258%), Lincoln University (+104%), Waikato University (+61%), Victoria University (+21%), Massey University (+10%), University of Kentucky, Northwestern University (threefold increase, Chegg), Guilford College, University of Pennsylvania (+72%), University of New South Wales (cheating on a systemic, industrial scale), University of Arkansas (saw a 46% jump), Teesside University, Humber College (deliberate and organized misconduct), California Polytechnic State University (an increase), Oklahoma University (+57%, Chegg) and Marquette University (double).
The Best Academic Integrity Research of 2021
To my surprise, there was a hefty amount of academic integrity research published in 2021 - probably spun up by the massive mode shifts of 2020. Nearly all of it was very good.
Here are two honorable mentions:
Guy J. Curtis, Margot McNeill, Christine Slade, Kell Tremayne, Rowena Harper, Kiata Rundle & Ruth Greenaway Moving beyond self-reports to estimate the prevalence of commercial contract cheating: an Australian study, Studies in Higher Education.
They found that about 8% of students have paid someone to write assignments or essays and 11% of students have downloaded pre-written work from internet sources. Their innovative research also found that actual misconduct and self-reports of academic misconduct may be off by a factor of 2.5x.
Cheating in online courses: Evidence from online proctoring - Seife Dendir and R. Stockton Maxwell, Computers in Human Behavior Reports.
Taking advantage of the ability to offer identical online courses with and without remote exam proctoring, the research showed that cheating was more common and highly rewarding in un-proctored settings.
In my view, the Best, Most Important Research in 2021 was:
Online cheating at the intersection of the dark triad and fraud diamond from Kenneth J. Smith, David J. Emerson and Shawn Mauldin.
It’s the rare research that gets to why students cheat and is invaluable in its assessment and advice to academic leaders. Oversimplifying, they find that academic misconduct is often a calculated, rationalized act and that being able to justify the deed is essential to acting on cheating impulses or opportunities.
The Best and Worst Reporting on Academic Integrity 2021
The good news is that there was a ton of coverage of cheating this year. And with good reason. Many national outlets gave it attention - The Today Show, NBC News, The Wall St Journal, Forbes and CBS as examples.
Unfortunately, a good bit of it was just awful. Pro tip: if your story is about a Tweet, you’re doing something wrong. At some publications, fact checkers obviously took 2021 off.
A dishonorable mention:
VICE. This piece from March is just not good, trying to make that illogical case that, because students are cheating remote proctors, we don’t need them. If you can stomach it, see Issue 12 for more.
But the Worst Piece of Academic Integrity Coverage for 2021 unquestionably was:
This absolute train wreck of a piece in - of all places - The New Yorker, from May.
See Issue 31 and Issue 29 for details but it’s crystal clear that no one at The New Yorker bothered to read the research they tried to cite because they got it flat backwards.
For example, the writer cited a paper as evidence that cheating was not necessarily more common online than it was in person. But that paper literally says, “the online group scored significantly above the in-class group on the final exam, thus suggesting a cheating effect.” That paper also says that their findings of cheating “would implicitly impose a moral burden” to prevent it.
I’m just speechless. I have been since May.
The good pieces from 2021 were really, really good however. As honorable mention for the best academic integrity reporting of 2021:
This expose on Chegg by Susan Adams in Forbes from January. It’s glorious. And it’s not every day that a story about cheating makes the front cover of the print edition of Forbes. But this one did. It probably should have been named the best of the year but, since I contribute at Forbes, it did not feel right. Even so, it’s outstanding.
The Today Show, from March. It’s just really good, especially for trying to cover this issue for TV.
But the Best Piece of Academic Integrity Coverage for 2021 was:
“Cheating at School Is Easier Than Ever—and It’s Rampant” by Tawnell D. Hobbs, in May, in the Wall St Journal. Yes, WSJ.
See Issue 25 for details.
Not only is it great coverage of the state of affairs in education, dealing with the unprecedented increase in misconduct since 2020, it’s solid original reporting. The writer and editors lurk job boards and essay sellers offering to take entire online classes for students for as little as $495 per class.
Best News Outlet or Publication on Academic Integrity 2021
VICE and The New Yorker won’t make this list.
Neither will Insider Higher Ed, which continues to misrepresent and mitigate cheating while taking money from cheating companies such as Course Hero and Chegg - see Issue 53 or Issue 49 or Issue 50.
But some outlets did really good work covering academic integrity this year, including:
Student and independent college newspapers. They are the best and often only source of coverage on student misconduct. Without them, we’d know almost nothing about this.
Forbes. In addition to their great piece on Chegg, Forbes allows me to contribute there, often on academic misconduct. It’s a valuable resource and audience for this topic.
WSJ. The piece by Hobbs was not the only big story on cheating that WSJ ran this year. They covered the heck out of the cheating at West Point too.
But the Top Outlet for Coverage of Academic Integrity, all year long was:
Times Higher Ed. Go back and count if you’d like but THE ran far more stories on academic integrity than anyone and it’s not even close. Their coverage included unique voices, new topics and accurately reflected these issues better - with more depth and balance - than anyone.
Biggest Academic Integrity Issue of 2021
Reading back through “The Cheat Sheet” this year, it was difficult to decide what the biggest issue of 2021 was. Here are few worth mentioning:
Chegg, the cheating provider that sells itself as a tutoring service, closed its actual, in-person tutoring services in January 2021. Awkward.
Unlike most schools, Stanford University relies on an honor code - a real honor code and nothing else - to police misconduct. The school does not even proctor live, in-class exams. But faced with a rise in cheating this year, student leaders are considering the first change to the honor code since 1977 - allowing exams to be proctored. That would be big.
Pearson suing Chegg over copyright issues was a big deal too. See Issue 57.
But the Biggest Development in Academic Integrity in 2021 was:
Facebook taking down essay mill ads in Ireland. See Issue 74.
Academic cheating is illegal in many places. It never means very much that it is. But officials in Ireland, where contract cheating is banned, persuaded Facebook to remove ads for the services. If that is the start of a trend, if other companies block similar ads or if ads are blocked elsewhere, it’s a game changer.
Person of the Year in Academic Integrity 2021
Elon Musk.
Kidding.
But seriously, there have been some bad actors.
The investors who keep funding cheating companies should be singled out. Some of those companies can be found in Issue 80 and Issue 54.
Same goes for the teachers and college leaders and others who stand up for, stand with those cheating companies. It’s worse than not helpful, it helps these companies take advantage of students for profit. There’s also a list in Issue 44 and Issue 29.
And because it’s unfair to single out just one person as “the best,” I am not going to. Instead, I’ll list a few who deserve attention. Addressing academic integrity needs to be a team sport:
Tricia Bertram Gallant, University of California San Diego. She’s one of a handful of genuine experts on academic integrity and her voice is always valuable.
David Rettinger, University of Mary Washington. David owes his press department a round of drinks - dude gets more ink on cheating than Tiger Woods. But he knows his stuff and says the right things.
Kathryn Baron, host of The Score podcast. The long-time education writer has opened a new front in academic integrity, doing great interviews and telling important stories about the issue.
Karen Simms Gallagher, University of Southern California. The former Dean at the USC college of education, ripped the doors off in her op-ed in the LA Times in October. See Issue 67.
There are more, many more. But these folks had a good 2021.
Quote of the Year 2021
This one was too much fun. And too long. And too hard.
For quote of the year, here are a few mentions:
Dr. Mark Biggin, a genetics scholar and professor at Berkeley: “I have tried following the advice given by the academic center, including things they say work, like open book tests and those suggestions are not effective. We’ve shown that. We measured it.”
Candace Sue, Head of Academic Relations at Chegg, when asked why Chegg could not simply delay any answers given to students so they could not use them during an exam: “It’s really unfair in our view to make [students] wait for an artificial delay.”
An unnamed professor at the University of Minnesota: “I tried to not turn everything into a police state. I don't want them to be filmed during this or having to monitor these types of elements. I did place on every exam my honor code which I use during face-to-face and simply ask that you are completing this work, this is your own, you are not using notes, textbooks or other people at this time. And just simply making that request on their honor, that is what I'm expecting to kind of go on.”
But the Quote of the Year in Academic Integrity 2021 has to be this, from an unnamed student at California State LA:
A lot of kids are cheating but it’s because we’re being cheated out of our education. We’re paying $8,000 on tuition every year and we’re worried we’re not going to pass. Students aren’t going to pay $8,000 a year to fail, especially during a pandemic.
Thank you again for reading “The Cheat Sheet.” Happy New Year.