Are you reading a paper and suspect that the paper was not written by the person who submitted it? This problem is global and it is not easy to detect or to prove. If such a paper is evaluated without establishing that it was not written by the person who submitted it, then it is an evaluation of the work of the contractor and not of the person claiming to be the author. In this way, students may receive credit for work they did not complete. If a student presents such work as their own then it is a gross violation of academic integrity, it is academic fraud.
The proportion of students who admit to using contract cheating (work written by a third party) in their academic studies is growing worldwide. Contract cheating was self-reported by an average of 3.52% of students in studies conducted between 1978 and 2013. The percentage of students admitting to contract cheating in the period 2014 to 2018 was 15.7% (Newton, 2018).
There were used different methodologies in the different studies, which makes it difficult to compare them strictly.
In order to address this problem requires knowledge about how to detect the work submitted by a student but written by a third party. It is really not a simple task. Several different papers discuss indicators that can help with the identification of suspicious works, for example: How to respond to contract cheating: Detection and management, 15 Strategies to Detect Contract Cheating, Contract cheating: The warning signs, Detecting contract cheating in essay and report submissions: process, patterns, clues and conversations, Contract-cheating: some things to look for, Use these tips to fight contract cheating. The publication Contract Cheating in Higher Education provides a range of papers on contract writing from different perspectives.
There are several countries where contract cheating is prohibited by law – in New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, seventeen US states, Montenegro, Australia, Austria and England (not in the whole United Kingdom). Slovakia has recently joined this select group.
In Slovakia the term “academic fraud” was introduced in the legislation contained in the Higher Education Act of 2021. The Act introduces the obligation for students to cite all sources used. Until now the obligation to cite sources was included only in the regulations of higher education institutions and in the Slovak Technical Standards.
The Act emphasizes that the final thesis (bachelor, master or doctoral level) must be original work. The Act does not include the requirement for submissions related to other assignments to be original work. That is the weak side of the amendment to this Act.
The main pillars of this new legislation are (shortened):
- Academic fraud happens when a candidate submits a final thesis (for bachelor, master or doctoral degree) that is not at least partially the result of his own and independent activity. This does not affect the right of a candidate to refer to information, materials and other objects, that have been acknowledged in the relevant thesis.
- A thesis (bachelor, master, doctoral) must be original and the result of the candidate’s own and independent activity. Such theses must comply with legislation concerning intellectual property rights, data protection and privacy.
And what does the Act say about other parties engaged in the academic fraud? An entrepreneur or legal entity commits a delict if they
- prepare or ensure for another the preparation of all or part of a thesis, or
- promote, offer or mediate, directly or indirectly, the preparation of all or part of a thesis for another; this applies even if the consequence is not academic fraud.
The fine can be 10,000 to 50,000 €. If this happened less than two years ago, then the fine can be 20,000 to 100,000 €. Repeated delict leads to a higher fine.
Well, let’s face it, the law will not stop contract cheating. Every law has its violators. Awareness and prevention have essential significance.
It is very important that higher education institutions develop rules that will help the evaluators of theses (those responsible for supervising and examining theses) to detect theses that have been written by a third party. The ministry of education could help by developing a general methodology for detecting such papers. And it would be a great help if the ministry invested in software that supports the detection of suspicious works. In Slovakia the Ministry of Education helped higher education institutions in 2009 to address plagiarism – they prepared the methodology and implementation of a nationwide system for supporting the detection of plagiarism, which was made obligatory for all Slovak HEIs. The system started to operate in April 2010 and is still operational today. In addition to this system Slovak HEIs use one or two more further systems for conducting originality checks.
But let’s look at it differently. There have been many surveys using online questionnaires concerning contract cheating. Examples from three countries follow.
According to a study (Foltýnek, Králiková, 2018) in the Czech Republic, the percentage of assignments or final theses written by a third party (contract cheating) is 8%. These assignments and final theses, which should be the student’s independent work, were not written by the students who submitted them. Another survey (Králiková, 2018) from the Czech Republic says that 14% of students admitted to contract cheating.
The Slovak foundation Zastavme korupciu (Let’s stop the corruption) estimated that up to 13% of university graduates finish their studies with a final thesis that is written by a third party.
The scam also works well thanks to the fact that the theses are written by people directly from the same academic environment – teachers, supervisors or young doctoral students.
In Australia an online survey found that around 2 to 3 percent of students admitted to contract cheating (Curtis, 2021). Appreciating that people do not like to admit to unethical behaviour, also because students were surveyed using online anonymous questionnaires, it is likely that this is an underestimate. Taking this into account the researchers then ran another survey using a method where they provided people with an incentive to be truthful. The essence was psychological (Curtis, 2021): they asked people to be truthful and participants knew that truthfulness of their answers will increase their reward. And the result – more people admitted to contract cheating. Around 2 to 3 percent in the original study transformed to 8 to 10 percent, which is closer to the reality. In the light of this methodology the results from classical online questionnaires also appear to be underestimates and one can say that they are not a very credible reflection of the true extent of contract cheating.
Contract cheating and applications generating outputs with the help of artificial intelligence (essays, articles, solving assignments, theses, and research papers) are phenomena that can undermine the quality of higher education.
Applications generating outputs with the help of artificial intelligence is one of the newer technologies. Every new technology has its dark and bright sides and generators are no exception. Awareness needs to be raised in order to successfully face its dark sides and use its bright sides for the benefit of all stakeholders involved in the educational processes.
The main prerequisites that can contribute to the fight against academic misconduct are education, awareness, deterrence methods and the cultural, social and family context of all those involved.
Contract cheating, and especially applications generating texts and artefacts with the help of artificial intelligence, are growing and have the potential to cause a lot of damage, not only in the higher education sector. It is very important that academic staff remain well informed about these phenomena. There is a need for them to develop expertise in identifying suspicious documents and generating convincing evidence to support allegations of all forms of academic misconduct.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank Irene Glendinnig, PhD for her valuable suggestions for the pre-final version of this article.
About the author
Július Kravjar is a Founding and Board Member of the European Network for Academic Integrity (ENAI), Czechia
Contact: julius.kravjar@gmail.com