I've recently been involved in a case of "contract cheating," where a student bought her research paper for my class from a term paper-writing site and was discovered. (She actually contracted for three different papers from three different courses - that we know of.) I think it's *much* more common than we'd like to believe.
This has gotten me very interested in the issue of contract cheating and how it can be detected. (Short answer: Not easily.) For obvious reasons, the plagiarizing sites won't work for this. They compare a student's work to other published works, and since these paper-writing sites typically sell made-to-order papers, there's a different kind of deception involved, because the student *is* handing in an original paper. It just wasn't written by him/her. Of course, sometimes the purchased paper is plagiarized from an original work, but that's probably from the cheaper companies, not from the more upstanding (tongue-in-cheek) organizations like http://www.non-plagiarized-termpapers.com/! One of the experts on this is Robert Clarke, from Birmingham City University, England. He's actually the one who alerted me to my student's deception. (Here's information about contract cheating and Clarke and his colleague, Thomas Lancaster are described: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_cheating. ) Here's a summary of their findings: http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/assessment/plagiarism/cheat_plagiarism.html And here are slides presented at a workshop: http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/events/presentations/682_Private%20Life%20Annotated.pdf I think we all need to be aware that this is fast becoming a huge problem. If a student graduates from one of our institutions but clearly doesn't "know his/her stuff," it reflects poorly on the institution. And it makes me furious. Especially when I see the individualized feedback - which I gave to a student on her proposal - posted on the paper-writing site to give extra help to the person who's going to write her paper for her. Beth Benoit Granite State College Plymouth State University New Hampshire --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=3149 or send a blank email to leave-3149-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
