How to Prevent & Detect Contract Cheating

Excellence with Integrity

University of California, San Diego A Preferred Practice Series for Faculty

Combating institutions around the world, The Preferred
Contract so it’s best to assume that it’s Practice Series
Cheating happening on many
campuses. 
Contract cheating occurs
when one person completes Thus, this preferred practice At UC San Diego, we do not
academic work that another document to help faculty simply want students to
submits for academic credit. prevent, detect and respond “excel” (an achievement
Contract cheating occurs on to contract cheating. Keep in often measured by GPAs,
small homeworks, on mind, not every preferred time to degree completion,
assignments, term papers, practice will work for every awards, and honors). We
draft papers, exams, theses, discipline or class size – so want them to excel with
dissertations, or even in entire take from it what you can and their integrity intact.
courses. The contract cheating ignore the rest.
business is expansive, The Excellence with
prompting groups like the Integrity Preferred Practice
Series for Faculty is an
“The best way to prevent contract cheating is to initiative of the UC San
get to know your students – their abilities, their Diego Academic Integrity
writing style, and their names and faces” Office to help faculty
implement practices and
UK’s Quality Assurance Preferred Practice #1: strategies that will help
Agency to release a report UCSD students excel with
about the danger it poses to Create Meaningful Assessments integrity.
higher education. Although
we are not confident about the Students may be more likely If you have ideas for a
extent of the contract cheating to arrange for contract future Preferred Practice
by students, a 2016 cheating if the assessment article, please send it along
investigative report by Brad seems too hard, too boring, to [email protected]
Wolverton of the Chronicle of too mundane, than if the
Higher Education suggest that assessment is personal and
business is good for contract meaningful. Easier said than
cheating companies. Indeed, done because what one
there have been identified student finds meaningful,
cases of contract cheating at another will not. However,
the basic premise
undergirding this preferred
practice is this – more

learning (rather than cheating) Preferred Practice #3: about planning their time, and
will occur if you articulate mirrors the flexibility many of
your learning objectives and Get to Know Your Students’ us face in the world of work
demonstrate to students how Voices (albeit not all deadlines can be
completing the assessments flexible).
will help the students reach If you get to know your
those learning objectives. Also students’ voices, you can then Preferred Practice #5:
consider allowing students to sense when a student hasn’t
have some choice over their written the paper being Carefully proctor examinations
topic, rather than you submitted because the voice is
dictating the topic on which different, the writing is more In classes where writing is a
they must write. Finally, sophisticated, or the language major component, and not all
consider devising alternative is particular. So, get to know of the writing can occur in
assessments to the traditional your students’ voices through class, include an in-class,
research paper, which is fairly in-class writing, through proctored exam as one of the
cheap and easy to secure from drafts, and through oral grade components. The exam
a contract cheating provider. interviews about their ideas itself doesn’t have to amount
and papers. to a high percentage, but
Preferred Practice #2: passing it should be a
Preferred Practice #4: requisite for passing the class.
Have Students Write in Class When giving any exams,
Reduce Pressure Points whether in a writing intensive
When students do some of class or not, but especially
their writing in class, on paper, Students are more likely to final exams, student IDs
they are given the engage in contract cheating should be verified to ensure
opportunity to write without when they are pushed against that the person taking the
googling. In other words, they a deadline. Although students exam is the person enrolled in
are given the opportunity to largely create their own your class. See the Ensure
think about what they already deadline conundrums, Integrity in Testing Preferred
know about the topic. This instructors can consider Practice document for more
can provide sufficient adopting a different kind of details about this practice.
confidence and inspiration in “late work” policy. Perhaps,
students so that they will for example, you allow Preferred Practice #6:
want to write the paper. In students twice a term to
addition, if some writing is submit their work up to 2 Always use Turnitin
done in class, you can: days late. And perhaps you
provide just-in-time assistance require that if students can’t Although the “good” contract
AND you then have a make any of the available cheating companies don’t
baseline understanding of the deadlines, they meet with you plagiarize, they may reuse
students’ writing to create a plan to enable them their own material. Every
competencies and their voice. to succeed with integrity. This time a paper is submitted to
kind of practice is more work Turnitin, it can now be
for the instructor, but teaches compared to future papers
students valuable lessons submitted. So, if we build the

database of papers, we may unusual or particularly since the first assessment.
be able to detect more contract sophisticated I’d love to hear how you
cheating than we could  the assessment doesn’t managed to make such
otherwise. address the prompt progress in such a short
When this occurs, call the amount of time!
Preferred Practice #7:  Your use of language and
student in for a meeting and your writing ability are
Detect Contract Cheating surprising for someone at
pose these questions to them: your level, can you tell me
Graders of assignments must your secrets so I can share
be trained to keep an eye out  tell me about your process them with other students?
for signs of contract cheating. for writing this assessment.
The most common signs are: How did you begin? Final Thoughts
 the assessment is “too good
 It’s a very interesting In the end, it is most
to be true” because it is topic/theme/angle you important that you follow up
written at a higher level chose to explore, how did with any suspicions of
than expected you go about choosing it? contract cheating. Contact the
 the language, ideas and/or Academic Integrity Office for
readings used in the  In the assessment, you used a consultation or advice.
assessment were not X word and it was just a
covered in class unique choice. Can you tell
 the specific word choices me more about your use of
used in the assessment are that word and how you
decided to use it?

 I was very impressed with
the quality of your work in
this assessment. You’ve
made such improvements

If you have questions, please feel free to contact the UCSD Academic Integrity Office at
http://academicintegrity.ucsd.edu, [email protected], 858-822-2163 or in person in 301 University Center.

Resources & Useful Readings

Clarke, R. & Lancaster, T. (July, 2007). Establishing a Systematic Six-Stage Process for Detecting
Contract Cheating. The Second International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Applications
(ICPCA07). Birmingham City University.

Lancaster, T. & Clarke, R. (April, 2012). Dealing with Contract Cheating: A Question of Attribution.
First Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics. London: Imperial College.

Newton, P. & Lang, C. (2016). Custom Essay Writers, Freelancers and Other Paid Third Parties. In T.
Bretag (Ed) Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 1-16). Singapore: Springer.

Wolverton, B. (August 28, 2016). The New Cheating Economy. Chronicle of Higher Education.
Retrieved October 8th, 2016 from http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-New-Cheating-
Economy/237587