Forthcoming book: Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials in Higher Education

October 16, 2022
Front cover of the book, Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials in Higher Education, edited by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Jamie Carmichael, and Helen Pethrick. Published 2023 by Springer.

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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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.


Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials: Research Project Update

February 3, 2022

close up shot of paper money and numbers on a gray surface

Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels.com

Since 2020, Jamie Carmichael (Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada) and I have been partnering on research related to fake degrees and fraudulent credentials in Canada. We presented our preliminary findings last year at the 2021 European Conference on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism. Later in 2021, I contributed an invited article on fake degrees and credential fraud to a special issue of the Career Planning & Adult Development Journal focusing on the future of work.

Now Jamie and I are working on an edited book to be published by Springer Nature later this year.

We have noticed more and more discussions of qualification fraud and impersonation in the news, such as this article that talks about a situation in which the person who showed up for an interview and was hired was not the same person who showed up for the job after the hiring process was complete.

Since starting this project almost two years ago our eyes have been opened to the massive global market that exists for fake and fraudulent degrees, diplomas, and other credentials. We’ll keep you updated as our research evolves, but for now we just wanted to let you know we are still working on this and learning more every day.

Related posts:

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Share or Tweet this: Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials: Research Project Update –  https://drsaraheaton.wordpress.com/2022/02/03/fake-degrees-and-fraudulent-credentials-research-project-update/

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.