‘Just turn to us’: the persuasive features of contract cheating websites

Rowland, Susan; Slade, Christine; Wong, Kai Sheng; Whiting, Brooke

doi:10.1080/02602938.2017.1391948

Cited by 93 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The idea of the 'vulnerable' student has been put forward, who is essentially under pressure and may, for example, be more readily persuaded by the information on custom essay writing websites (Rowland et al, 2018). But it could be valuable to take a different angle: lines of enquiry or investigations could consider those students who undertake good academic practice in completing their assessment tasks -What are the key factors that influence their behaviour?…”

Section: Understanding Studentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic integrity matters: five considerations for addressing contract cheating

Morris

2018

Int J Educ Integr

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This commentary paper examines the issue of contract cheating in higher education, drawing on research and current debate in the field of academic integrity. Media coverage of this issue has reflected significant concerns in the field about students' use of custom academic writing services, along with sector and national calls for action that would lead to making such essay mills illegal. However, recent studies have revealed the complex nature of contract cheating, with a relatively low proportion of students engaging in outsourcing behaviours involving a third party. This paper focuses on how universities and colleges can respond to this emergent concern, and proposes that institutions extend and establish strategies to embed the values, principles and practices aligned to academic integrity. As part of this endeavour, five areas of consideration are offered for higher education institutions that relate to: determining academic integrity strategy; reviewing institutional policy; understanding students; re-visiting assessment practices; and implications for staff professional development.

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Section: Understanding Studentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic integrity matters: five considerations for addressing contract cheating

Morris

2018

Int J Educ Integr

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“…Media accounts of this problem often identify commercial services as the third party, with money being paid by a student in return for some form of written assignment (Bartlett, 2009;Anonymous, 2013;Matthews, 2013;Henry et al, 2014;Bomford, 2016;Usborne, 2017). Most academic research to date has considered payment synonymous with a definition of contract cheating (e.g., Mahmood, 2009;Walker and Townley, 2012;Clarke and Lancaster, 2013;Wallace and Newton, 2014;Curtis and Clare, 2017;Rowland et al, 2017Rowland et al, , 2018Ellis et al, 2018), although a recent project has expanded the area of study to include other third parties such as friends and family members (Bretag et al, 2018;Harper et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Commercial contract cheating providers use persuasive marketing techniques to create a sense of urgency and legitimacy (Rowland et al, 2018) while protecting themselves from legal allegations of "fraud" by using terms and conditions which make their clients responsible for misuse of their products . Similar services are on offer through variants of the "gig economy" wherein students or agents advertise work (e.g., writing an assignment) on freelancing-type sites and writers bid for the opportunity to complete the work (Newton and Lang, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Common Is Commercial Contract Cheating in Higher Education and Is It Increasing? A Systematic Review

Newton

2018

Front. Educ.

216

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Contract cheating, where students recruit a third party to undertake their assignments, is frequently reported to be increasing, presenting a threat to academic standards and quality. Many incidents involve payment of the third party, often a so-called "Essay Mill," giving contract cheating a commercial aspect. This study synthesized findings from prior research to try and determine how common commercial contract cheating is in Higher Education, and test whether it is increasing. It also sought to evaluate the quality of the research evidence which addresses those questions. Seventy-one samples were identified from 65 studies, going back to 1978. These included 54,514 participants. Contract cheating was self-reported by a historic average of 3.52% of students. The data indicate that contract cheating is increasing; in samples from 2014 to present the percentage of students admitting to paying someone else to undertake their work was 15.7%, potentially representing 31 million students around the world. A significant positive relationship was found between time and the percentage of students admitting to contract cheating. This increase may be due to an overall increase in self-reported cheating generally, rather than contract cheating specifically. Most samples were collected using designs which makes it likely that commercial contract cheating is under-reported, for example using convenience sampling, with a very low response rate and without guarantees of anonymity for participants. Recommendations are made for future studies on academic integrity and contract cheating specifically.

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“…These sites display the persuasive features that Rowland et al have identified as being typical of academic custom writing sites sites. They divide these features into three categories: informativeness (eg information about services offered and terms of use), credibility (eg assurances of the quality of both the writers and the work produced, as well as of price, of privacy and of payment security) and involvement (eg offering customers 24/7 live text chat services, social media and personal accounts) (Rowland et al 2017). Many of the sites provide phone numbers with British, American and/or Australian area codes.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wallace and Newtown have also investigated the speed of production of contract cheating procured and produced through these types of site (Wallace and Newton 2014). The scholarly work on academic custom writing sites has considered such things as the legality of the transactions (Newton and Lang 2015;Draper et al 2017), the quality of work being produced (Lines 2016), the writers who produce the work (Bartlett 2009;Sivasubramaniam et al 2016), the ability of markers to detect essays purchased from these sites (Dawson and Sutherland-Smith 2017) and the variety of features used by the sites to persuade students to use their services (Rowland et al 2017). This paper offers some initial findings that have resulted from a close examination of a selection of sites associated with academic custom writing.…”

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confidence: 99%

The infernal business of contract cheating: understanding the business processes and models of academic custom writing sites

2018

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While there is growing awareness of the existence and activities of Academic Custom Writing websites, which form a small part of the contract cheating industry, how they work remains poorly understood. Very little research has been done on these sites, probably because it has been assumed that it is impossible to see behind their firewalls and password protection. We have found that, with some close scrutiny, it is indeed possible to find some 'cracks' in these sites through which we can look to gain insights into the business processes that operate within them. We have reverse engineered the business processes that operate within some of these sites. From this we have also been able to identify three different business models that are supported by these sites. Our analysis supports important findings about how these sites operate that can be used to inform future strategies to detect and deter contract cheating.

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‘Just turn to us’: the persuasive features of contract cheating websites

Cited by 93 publications

References 33 publications

Academic integrity matters: five considerations for addressing contract cheating

Academic integrity matters: five considerations for addressing contract cheating

How Common Is Commercial Contract Cheating in Higher Education and Is It Increasing? A Systematic Review

The infernal business of contract cheating: understanding the business processes and models of academic custom writing sites

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