The ethics of outsourcing: Contract cheating in the health professions

This morning I had the pleasure of providing a continuing education session to the Orthopaedic Surgeons at their City Wide (Grand) Rounds. The session was offered live at the Foothills campus and participants from various hospitals around the city joined by video conference.

Learning Objectives:

• Define and explain what contract cheating is
• Explain how the global contract cheating industry works
• Understand the impact of contract cheating among medical and health program students

Here’s a copy of the title slide:

References:

Bagshaw, E. (2016, May 26). University of Sydney’s medical school in second cheating controversy. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/education/university-of-sydneys-medical-school-in-second-cheating-controversy-20160525-gp3g3h.html

Bretag, T. (2017). Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, Good Practice Note: Addressing contract cheating to safeguard academic integrity  Retrieved from https://www.teqsa.gov.au/latest-news/publications/good-practice-note-addressing-contract-cheating-safeguard-academic

Clarke, R., & Lancaster, T. (2006). Eliminating the successor to plagiarism: Identifying the usage of contract cheating sites. Paper presented at the Second International Plagiarism Conference, Gateshead, UK.

Curtis, G. J., & Clare, J. (2017). How Prevalent is contract cheating and to what extent are students repeat offenders? Journal of Academic Ethics, 15(2), 115-124. doi:10.1007/s10805-017-9278-x

Eaton, S. E. (2018). Contract cheating: A Canadian perspective.  Retrieved from http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2018/07/24/contract-cheating-a-canadian-perspective/

Eaton, S. E., & Edino, R. I. (2018). Strengthening the research agenda of educational integrity in Canada: A review of the research literature and call to action. Journal of Educational Integrity, 14(1). Retrieved from https://edintegrity.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s40979-018-0028-7 doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-018-0028-7

Hosney, M. I., & Fatima, S. (2014). Attitude of students towards cheating and plagiarism: University case study. Journal of Applied Sciences, 14(8), 748-757. doi:10.3923/jas.2014.748.757

International Center for Academic Integrity. (2016). Institutional toolkit to combat contract cheating  Retrieved from http://integrity.fiu.edu/pdfs/Contract%20Cheating.pdf

Lancaster, T. (2018). US in first place for essays orders (not surprising), with the UK and Canada in equal second place [Tweet].   Retrieved from https://twitter.com/DrLancaster/status/1029014675198013440

Lancaster, T., & Clarke, R. (2008). The phenomena of contract cheating. In T. S. Roberts (Ed.), Student plagiarism in an online world: Problems and solutions (pp. 144-158). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Inc.

Lancaster, T., & Clarke, R. (2015). Examining contract cheating, essay mill use and academic misconduct by students on health courses.  Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323425525_Examining_Contract_Cheating_Essay_Mill_Use_and_Academic_Misconduct_by_Students_on_Health_Courses

Newton, P. M., & Lang, C. (2016). Custom essay writers, freelancers, and other paid third parties. In T. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 249-271). Singapore: Springer Singapore.

O’BRien, N., & Smith, A. (2015, June 6). Cheating scandal: Sydney university to review medical study unit. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/education/cheating-scandal-sydney-university-to-review-medical-study-unit-20150606-ghi5d2.html

Plagiarism.org. (2017). How big of a problem in contract cheating?   Retrieved from http://www.plagiarism.org/blog/2017/12/12/how-big-of-a-problem-is-contract-cheating

Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (UK) (QAA). (2017). Contracting to cheat in higher education: How to address contract cheating, the use of third-party services and essay mills  Retrieved from http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/Contracting-to-cheat-in-higher-education.pdf

Rogerson, A. M. (2017). Detecting contract cheating in essay and report submissions: process, patterns, clues and conversations. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 13(1), 10. doi:10.1007/s40979-017-0021-6

Tonkin, A. L. (2015). “Lifting the carpet” on cheating in medical school exams. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 351(August), 22-29.

Turnitin. (2013). Paying for plagiarism (webinar). Retrieved from http://go.turnitin.com/webcast/paying-for-plagiarism

University of Alberta. (n.d.). Student Conduct and Accountability: Proving Misconduct.   Retrieved from https://www.ualberta.ca/provost/dean-of-students/student-conduct-and-accountability/proving-misconduct

Walker, M., & Townley, C. (2012). Contract cheating: A new challenge for academic honesty? Journal of Academic Ethics, 10(1), 27–44. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-012-9150-y

If you would like  a copy of this talk, please e-mail me at seaton (at) ucalgary (dot) ca

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Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

Opinions are my own and do not represent those of the Werklund School of Education or the University of Calgary.