A new law is needed to tackle contract cheating in the UK

‘Contract cheating’ happens when students pay someone else to do their assessments for them. This is currently very easy to do; there are hundreds of websites, offering essays and almost any other type of assessment. This issue presents a threat to educational standards around the world. The assessments do not cost much, and are available quickly. Students propose modest penalties for the use of such services, perhaps due to a lack of understanding about the basic conventions of academic writing. Standard University regulations, at least in the UK, recommend that students using these services be withdrawn from their studies. There are a variety of different ways this issue could be addressed, but amongst the most common suggestions we hear is to use a legal approach. This was recently advocated by the UK regulator of Higher Education, the Quality Assurance Agency, following the meeting of an expert forum which included one of the authors (PN). The report produced by this group suggested use of the 2006 UK Fraud Act to tackle contract cheating – a possibility that had been independently arrived at by another one of the authors (MD). The study In the current issue of the International Journal for Educational Integrity, we take a close look at the UK Fraud Act, and compare it against the commonly observed practices of essay writing companies. We look at the terms and conditions on the websites of these companies, and the advertising they use. Th...
Source: BioMed Central Blog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Contract cheating Fraud Act International Journal for Educational Integrity Source Type: blogs