On Gaining Insights into Contract Cheating

Academic integrity violations have always plagued educational institutions. In the past, most student violators simply plagiarised willing or unwitting classmates, or in more recent times off Internet sources, or committed cheating offences in examinations. With sufficient resources, these categories can be mitigated by detection. Contract cheating, where a student contracts their assignment out to an academic ghostwriter who works out the solution on behalf of the student. When a ghostwriter provides custom solutions for each student, contract cheating becomes difficult to detect and almost impossible to prove, even if it is suspected, e.g., when an otherwise weak student submits a near-perfect solution. However, the financial cost of contract cheating used to act as a deterrent. With the emergence of online essay mills, "tutoring companies" and other digital service providers offering affordable academic homework solutions, dissertations, and even theses, a growing number of students appear to be seeking solutions from such companies. The quality and pricing of solutions these companies offer varies widely. There are a variety of reasons why students sign up with these sites, the most common one being that the companies make contract cheating convenient and relatively cheap. This is a discussion paper reviewing related work, and reflecting upon some of our experience dealing with contract cheating.