"The Rise of Online Academic Cheating Groups"
Plus, extortion and essay mills. Plus, asking K-12 to do more. Plus, quick bites.
Issue 79
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The Rise of Online Academic Cheating Groups
Important news coverage in The Philippines details the use of Facebook groups by students to share answers to homework, test questions, essays - you name it.
The story is worth reading because collusion cheating - the sharing of answers and academic work among students - is one of the most difficult to detect, prove or stop. And according to this news article, which provoked an official response from the Philippine government, a single Facebook cheating and sharing group had 193,000 members.
When I checked, it showed 225,000 members.
A few things.
One, this absolutely is not a Philippines problem. This is a cheating problem. It’s naïve to think these groups do not exist in other places. Reporting has shown they do - often in smaller clusters and dedicated to single classes or subjects or schools, but they exist.
Two, this is also a social media problem. In addition to providing the marketing that cheating companies need to survive, social media companies such as Facebook seem content to allow students and others to use their products to cheat. Maybe that’s because no one has asked them to not do that. If anyone did, they may stop. They did in Ireland (see Issue 74).
Three, the article covering this one Facebook group is a fantastic example of the rationalization that plays into cheating. One of the group’s moderators and founders told the paper she:
was convinced that they are doing the education system in the Philippines a favor.
“It is something our officials failed to address. We created this group out of good intention because we understand how students like us feel during this crucial time. We just really wanted to help the students and parents,” she said.
She also highlighted that all students who shared their answers in the group were done voluntarily. She described that the group is becoming an effectively extended arena of learning for struggling students.
In other words, it’s not cheating - it’s assisted learning because things are tough and the schools aren’t doing enough.
The paper also has a second part to this story - reporting on people who earn commissions selling cheating services to students. I’ll break that down in a future Issue.
Attention on Essay Mills Extorting Students
Kristina Nicholls of Torrens University (AUS) wrote a piece for The Conversation in which she explores the very real risks of blackmail and extortion that students take when they enlist the help of contract cheating providers.
She writes:
When students fill in their credit card number to complete a purchase from a contract cheating service, they are doing business with unscrupulous gremlins. They risk heading down a sinister black hole of extortion and blackmail using the threat of exposure to their university or employer.
Yup. It’s true. When you engage the services of cheats and liars, they may cheat and lie to you.
Nicholls adds:
Contract-cheating gremlins have turned to blackmail as an ongoing source of income from students. They threaten to tell the university the student has bought an assignment unless the student pays up.
Students can be blackmailed even after finishing their degrees when the gremlins threaten to expose their cheating behaviour to employers.
It’s an important warning to repeat to students and yet another reason that school leaders cannot justify passivity in dealing with cheating providers.
For a real example of how this blackmail works, see Issue 48.
K-12 Has to Do More to Help Colleges Combat Cheating
University Business has an interesting article from Ashley Norris, an executive at Meazure Learning, about how K-12 leaders can help curb academic misconduct in college.
Saying that colleges are being overrun by cheating, Norris says,
Colleges have an increasingly pressing need for students to understand the why of good academic conduct, and to push beyond the value of the earning of a grade.
And,
Clearly, colleges will have to do more, including investing heavily in education and academic support. But I sense already that K-12 schools and districts and states are likewise going to be asked to do more to instill the early values of correct academic conduct, to build a culture of trust around good learning practices.
Because, she correctly notes,
Very few cheaters cheat the first time in college. Academic research concludes that the shortcut study habits that drive college cheating are formed early, as early as middle school.
The link between K-12 and higher education on academic honesty and integrity is not highlighted enough.
Cheat Sheet Quick Bites
Police in India caught this man wearing a wig and interwoven earpiece to try to cheat on a government exam. There’s video.
Also in India, police in Delhi say they cracked a cheating ring and arrested three people. The group took over a test-taker’s computer during remote exams and answered questions for students.
In Nepal, this story says that a college student attacked his teacher after “barring him from exam cheating.” Details aren’t exactly clear.
In Texas, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has upheld the ban of a broker who was caught cheating on one of his certification exams. He reportedly wrote notes on his hands and driver’s license and left the exam room during the test. He was caught by exam proctors.