by Thomas Lancaster -

Contract Cheating in the Gig Economy

Contract cheating is an international problem, but most of the attention to this has taken place in the UK and Australia. This also began to emerge as a theme at the International Centre for Academic Integrity Conference, which took place in New Orleans, USA, in March 2019.

Here are slides for the presentation “Contract Cheating in the Gig Economy” which looked at what we know about the low-cost writing services that students have access to.

The slides are available on Thomas Lancaster’s SlideShare account. They are also included below.
by Thomas Lancaster -

Profiling the international academic ghost writers who are providing low-cost essays and assignments for the contract cheating industry

Thomas Lancaster, (2018) “Profiling the international academic ghost writers who are providing low-cost essays and assignments for the contract cheating industry”, Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-04-2018-0040

Abstract

Purpose

Students have direct access to academic ghost writers who are able to provide for their assessment needs without the student needing to do any of the work. These ghost writers are helping to fuel the international industry of contract cheating, raising ethical dilemmas, but not much is known about the writers, their business or how they operate. This paper aims to explore how the ghost writers market their services and operate, based on observable information.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper reviews data from providers actively offering contract cheating services available to the public on Fiverr.com, a low-cost micro outsourcing site. The search term write essay is used to identify providers, finding 103 Gigs from 96 unique providers. Visible information, such as provider marketing, advertised services, pricing information and customer reviews, is analysed.

Findings

The results demonstrate that bespoke essays are readily available to students at a low cost. The majority of providers operate from Kenya. Revenue calculations indicate a price point of US$31.73 per 1,000 words, below the cost of traditional essay mills, but show that these 96 providers have generated around US$270,000 of essay writing business between them.

Originality/value

This study affords a look into a complex and established industry whose inner workings are normally kept private and for which little published information currently exists. The research adds to what is known about the extent, location and operation of the contract cheating industry.

https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-04-2018-004