You are correct Burkhard, the examples of more than 20 postings by one person are usually made by "third-party subcontactors" who undertake assignments for students from several institutions; but occasionally are found to be servicing students from one main source.
Some of these examples have been traced back to postings on tutorial sites or discussion forums. Others are contractors passing on work that they can't (or won't) do themselves.
Our original work (Clarke & Lancaster 2006) showed that the "average" student posted between 4 and 7 assignments. This indicates to us that (1) they were not getting caught and (2) they were getting some level of satisfaction - ie marks- from the work they were paying for.
Although the BBC headline refers to "essay sites", it should be noted that the research we have presented mostly (90%) relates to computing and IT subject areas - only a few of the assignments request are for what would be normally classed as "essays".
The BBC article omits to mention that it arose from a HEA/ICS sponsored workshop on "Contract Cheating" held at BCU on 7 March.
see http://bsstudents.bcu.ac.uk/sdrive/Bob_Clarke/Contract%20Cheating/index.html.mht
The examples referred to that were presented at that meeting are available at: http://bsstudents.bcu.ac.uk/sdrive/Bob_Clarke/Contract%20Cheating/CC_Workshop_Examples%20of%20Contract%20Cheating_070308.pdf
My presentation on the "Private Life of an Assignment" gives an overview of the inter-relationships between assignments - including the role of subcontractors. http://bsstudents.bcu.ac.uk/sdrive/Bob_Clarke/Contract%20Cheating/CC_Workshop_Private%20Life%20Annotated_070308.pdf
Like Duncan, I would expect that a student who paid for his/her work to be completed to be unable to explain it.
I use a viva-voce exam as part of the assessment for my modules. Not only does this show up those that can't explain things, it also gives students the chance to reflect on what they did and the design/implementation choices that they made.
However (maybe that should be in CAPS) are we justified in failing a student who, on the day, has problem articulating his/her ideas? Good grounds for appeal here. We try to run vivas in tandem to get firm evidence and avoid the possible accusation of "intimidating" behaviour by the lecturer.
Another "however" is that this approach does not scale well, it takes two weeks and two members of staff to viva a cohort of 80 students. A colleague in Canada has 700 students studying his module over 5 sites - how is he going to trace the contract cheaters in that group?
My final "however" is concern that as we move towards more online delivery of courses the distance between the student and assessor increases, and the chances for "triangulation" techniques (like vivas and supervised practicals) decreases.
In my examples (link above) there are some associated with on-line universities in the US.
What about the OU in the UK? Who do you inform when assignments for their modules are spotted on auction sites?
Bob Clarke
Department of Computing
Birmingham City University
________________________________
From: Plagiarism on behalf of Burkhard Schafer
Sent: Thu 20/03/2008 11:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: News article from BBC re plagiarism from essay sites
While in total agreement with Duncan, what struck me was this sentence:
"There are "repeat offenders", including one student who wanted to buy
76 assignments in a year".
I don't know of any course that has 76 assignments a year - another
company that charges more for their essay and is doing arbitrage on the
global essay market? Another academic doing research on plagiarism,
maybe? On the internet, nobody knows if you're a dog (but they do know
what type of dog food you prefer)
Burkhard
Duncan Williamson wrote:
> Another article stating what we already know I think. My response is similar
> to the one I have given several times before: get to know your students and
> you will catch them out. Any smart Aleck can buy an answer but they probably
> cannot defend it.
>
> I helped my son with a bit of GCSE course work a few years ago by helping
> him to set up and program a spreadsheet file. It was good since I do a fair
> amount of spreadsheet modelling. The teacher was concerned so he gave my son
> a grilling on the file: the lad passed. In this case, I HELPED the lad by
> giving him knowledge that he did have but also ensuring that he learned and
> appreciated what I had done with him. He would have failed, of course, if I
> had simply done the work for him, as in the case of an essay mill.
>
> Duncan
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Davis [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 19 March 2008 19:05
> Subject: News article from BBC re plagiarism from essay sites
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7302641.stm
>
> Paul
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr Paul V Davis
> Acting Head, Learning Technologies Group
> Oxford University Computing Services
> 13 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6NN
> Tel: 01865 283414
>
> 2008 e-learning conferences:
> Shock of the Old - Web 2.0, April 3rd -
> http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/shock2008
> Beyond Digital Natives, April 4th -
> http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/beyond2008
>
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--
Burkhard Schafer
Senior Lecturer
School of Law
Edinburgh University
Old College
Edinburgh
EH8 9YL
[log in to unmask]
0044-(0)131-6502035
http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/staff/view.asp?ref=69
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