Forthcoming book: Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials in Higher Education

We are pleased to share the news that our edited book, Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials in Higher Education, has been submitted for publication (Eaton, Carmichael, and Pethrick, eds.) to Springer Nature. The book is slated for publication in early 2023.

Book description

This book addresses an important topic in higher education: credential fraud. This includes, but is not limited to, fake degrees, diploma mills, admissions fraud, and cheating on standardized admissions tests. The book directly addresses fake and fraudulent credentials in higher education. It explores transcript tampering and fraud in varsity athletics and discusses lazy practices in the higher education hiring processes that open the door for professors without proper credentials to get jobs in post-secondary institutions. 

The book also discusses how technology is being used to stop the proliferation of fake and fraudulent credentials in a variety of ways, including blockchain technology.

Table of Contents

Here is a sneak preview of the table of contents:

Chapter 1: Fake Degrees and Credential Fraud, Contract Cheating, and Paper Mills: Overview and Historical Perspectives – Sarah Elaine Eaton & Jamie Carmichael

Chapter 2: Admissions Fraud in Canadian Higher Education – Jamie Carmichael & Sarah Elaine Eaton

Chapter 3: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: A Tour of Axact, the “World’s Largest Diploma Mill” – Allen Ezell

Chapter 4: Bridging Today to Tomorrow: A Historical and Technological Review of Credential Exchange in Higher Education within Canada – Joanne Duklas

Chapter 5: Fair play, Fraud, or Fixed? Athletic Credentials in US Higher Education – Kirsten Hextrum

Chapter 6: Corruption in Admissions, Recruitment, Qualifications and Credentials: from Research into Quality Assurance – Stella-Maris Orim & Irene Glendinning

Chapter 7: Avoiding Favouritism in the Recruitment Practice of Turkish Higher Education Institutions Özgür Çelik & Salim Razı

Chapter 8: None of the Above: Integrity Concerns of Standardized English Proficiency Tests – Soroush Sabbaghan & Ismaeil Fazel

Chapter 9: Examining the Problem of Fraudulent English Test Scores: What Can Canadian Higher Education Institutions Learn? – Angela Clark

Chapter 10: There is no culture? A Framework for Addressing Admissions Fraud – Brendan DeCoster

Chapter 11: Security Risks, Fake Degrees, and Other Fraud: A Topic Modelling Approach – Jamie Carmichael & Sarah Elaine Eaton 

Chapter 12: Are You for Real? Lessons for the Academy About Professors with Fake or Fraudulent Degrees – Sarah Elaine Eaton & Jamie Carmichael

Chapter 13: Fake Degrees and Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials in Higher Education: Conclusions and Future Directions – Jamie Carmichael & Sarah Elaine Eaton

About the editors

Sarah Elaine Eaton

Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Calgary, Canada, where she also serves as the inaugural Educational Leader in Residence, Academic Integrity. Eaton’s research focuses on academic ethics in higher education. Her work can be found in the British Educational Research Journal, the Journal of Academic Ethics, the Journal of Educational Thought and Interchange, among other places. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for Educational Integrity (Springer Nature) and co-founder and co-editor of Canadian Perspectives on Academic Integrity. In 2020 she received the national Research and Scholarship award from the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE) for her contributions to research on academic integrity in Canadian higher education.

Jamie J. Carmichael

Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Jamie Carmichael is the Associate Registrar of Scheduling and Systems at Carleton University. She is responsible for the construction of the university timetable, scheduling and administration of examinations, the operation of two examination centres for students with disabilities, a university-wide space management system, and other core student administrative systems. Since 2009, she has received ten service excellence nominations for her work that ranges from information technology projects, team acknowledgment to innovation.

Carmichael’s research lies at the intersection of academic integrity and machine learning, with graduate education in Applied Science in Technology Information Management (Engineering). She has presented or co-presented at national and international conferences and is often called up on by specialized groups in higher education to present on her work.

Helen Pethrick

University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Helen Pethrick, MA, is a researcher and educator in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Research areas include academic integrity in higher education, post-secondary student mental health and well-being, and peer mentorship in educational settings.

Related posts:

Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials: Research Project Update

Scholarships Without Scruples: 3 Signs of Bogus Scholarships and Scams

Why Universities and Colleges Need Clear Policies to Deal with Fake COVID-19 Vaccination Records and Test Results

Degrees of Deceit: A Webinar

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This blog has had over 3 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, and the Educational Leader in Residence, Academic Integrity, University of Calgary, Canada. Opinions are my own and do not represent those of the University of Calgary.

Contract Cheating and Freedom of Expression: How the Chicago Principles Can Help You Promote Academic Integrity on Your Campus

Photo by Abby Chung on Pexels.com

It’s that time of the year again, when contract cheating and unethical tutoring companies hand out flyers to students as they enter classrooms and leave them all over campus – littered in classrooms, strewn on benches, tacked to bulletin boards, and so on. Historically, it has been difficult for some schools to have these advertisements removed because the companies behind them have claimed censorship and threatened legal action against the institution. However, there is reason for hope, especially if your school as a Statement on Free Expression. Let me explain.

Although the original Chicago statement – and others that were modelled on it – were created to support freedom of expression, there is a small but important detail about the limitations of free speech on campus that is relevant to academic integrity. In the original version of the Chicago Principles of Freedom of Expression, it states:

“The freedom to debate and discuss the merits of competing ideas does not, of course, mean that individuals may say whatever they wish, wherever they wish. The University may restrict expression that violates the law, that falsely defames a specific individual, that constitutes a genuine threat or harassment, that unjustifiably invades substantial privacy or confidentiality interests, or that is otherwise directly incompatible with the functioning of the University.” (Chicago Principles of Freedom of Expression, p. 2, emphasis added.)

I am not a lawyer, but I am a policy scholar. (You can find out more about my academic work on higher education policy here, here, and here, for example.) When examining policy, the devil is in the details, as they say. In this case, there is an argument to be made that when contract cheating companies and unethical tutoring businesses advertise on our campuses, they are acting in a manner that is directly incompatible with the functioning of the university. As such, the institution has a right to remove advertisements from campus that promote academic misconduct.

Every school that has developed its own statement of free expression based on the Chicago principles may have this important detail included that gives it leverage to curtail the blatant advertising of contract cheating services the school, including those in Canada. For example, in 2019, the Alberta government mandated that all post-secondary institutions in the province develop a statement to affirm freedom of expression that aligned with the Chicago Principles on Free Speech. Like all higher education institutions in the province of Alberta, the University of Calgary followed the government mandate, making a formal public announcement on December 16, 2019 that it had published its Statement on Free Expression. Our institutional Statement on Free Expression is publicly available. For quick reference, here is the .pdf statement: https://www.ucalgary.ca/provost/sites/default/files/StatementonFreeExpression.pdf 

The University of Calgary statement includes this sentence: “Free expression is subject to limitations imposed by law and, on our campuses, by University policies and procedures related to the functioning of the University.”

I brought this detail to the attention of our Provost at the time, Dr. Dru Marshall, pointing out that this could give the university leverage to reasonably remove advertisements for contract cheating services.  The Provost agreed and informed me that she would instruct Caretaking to have the advertisements on campus removed on this basis. We currently have an Interim Provost, Dr. Penny Werthner and I recently brought this information to her attention and she responded that she too, would take action.

Any post-secondary institution that has a Statement on Free Expression based on the Chicago principles, may be in a position to mandate the removal of advertisements that promote academic misconduct. Of course, this would need the agreement of the Provost or equivalent. I am sure that some lawyers could debate the nuances of some of this language and its implications. As I said, I am not a lawyer, but it would seem to me that in the case of Alberta at least, given that the provincial government mandated that every post-secondary institution in the province develop its own Statement on Free Expression based on the Chicago principles, and that universities and colleges across North America have widely adopted such statements that would have no doubt been scrutinized by lawyers ad nauseam, this is a policy loophole that could actually work in favour of the institution. There is a strong argument to be made that removal of advertisements that promote academic misconduct is not censorship, because communications that interfere with the functioning of the university (and that includes communications that promote academic misconduct) can reasonably be removed. This is not censorship; it is protecting the integrity of the institution.

If you live in jurisdiction that does not have legislation prohibiting the supply or advertisement of contract cheating services, but your school has a statement on free expression based on the Chicago principles, here are 5 things you can do:

• Share this blog post with your Provost / Vice-President Academic (or equivalent). Let them consider how the school’s statement can help to promote academic integrity.
• Ask the Provost (or equivalent) to instruct the head of caretaking that custodial should be instructed to remove the flyers and other advertisements that litter the classrooms and other areas of campus.
• Ask the Provost to inform the others on the executive leadership team (e.g., vice provost of student affairs, vice provost of teaching and learning, and so on) and deans to share this information with others in their respective units.
• Request that this information be shared at the next meeting of the University Senate (or in Alberta, the General Faculties Council) to ensure it is widely communicated.
• Ask how you can help. If your school has an academic committee or task force, offer to join and actively contribute to the ongoing work of upholding academic integrity at your own institution.

Institutions can take action against contract cheating. The annual International Day of Action Against Contract Cheating is fast approaching. It’s on October 19 this year. If your school hasn’t already signed up, you can still do so. Widespread removal of contract cheating advertisements could be a campus-wide event that students, staff, and administrators all participate in on that day, and every day.

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Share or Tweet this: Contract Cheating and Freedom of Expression: How the Chicago Principles Can Help You Promote Academic Integrity on Your Campus – https://drsaraheaton.wordpress.com/2022/10/04/contract-cheating-and-freedom-of-expression-how-the-chicago-principles-can-help-you-promote-academic-integrity-on-your-campus/

This blog has had over 3 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, and the Educational Leader in Residence, Academic Integrity, University of Calgary, Canada. Opinions are my own and do not represent those of the University of Calgary.