Assessing Contract Cheating Through Auction Sites – A Computing Perspective

Lancaster, T & Clarke, R (2007). Assessing Contract Cheating Through Auction Sites – A Computing Perspective, 8th Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Information and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, August 2007

The paper studies the use the RentACoder Web site to contract cheat by Computing students. RentACoder is an outsourcing service for computer work which operates under auction principles. Contract cheating is where students have assessed work completed for them on their behalf. The work is original, so not will be detected by the regular anti-plagiarism mechanisms that look for shared commonality. The paper describes the background to contract cheating and discusses a catalogue of 910 bid requests collected by the authors over two and a half years. The UK is seen to supply them with over 25% of contract cheating bid requests. This is largely composed of students outsourcing Java programming assignments; substantial projects are highlighted as a concern. Trends are seen to exist for other countries but are not the same as those identified for UK students.

Assessing Contract Cheating Through Auction Sites – A Computing Perspective

Dr. Thomas Lancaster is an international expert in academic integrity, best known for raising awareness of contract cheating through leading research and other activities. He regularly provides expert seminars and media commentary. Thomas is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Computer Science practitioner. To discuss opportunities to work with Thomas, please contact thomas@thomaslancaster.co.uk.
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