Robert Clarke sent me information he found and the results were quite startling. I think he's "on" these sites, looking for this kind of thing. Absolutely without question, as the student entered the title of the paper she needed as well as the feedback I'd given *only to her* about how to proceed with her paper.
That's the biggest problem...it seems that the only way we might be able to catch these students is to be moles in their systems.... Beth Benoit On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 11:58 AM, Paul Bernhardt <[email protected]>wrote: > > > How did you discover the paper was from a contract site? > > Thanks! > > Paul Bernhardt > Dept of Psychology > Frostburg State University > pcbernhardt _at_ frostburg _dot_ edu > > > > On Jun 17, 2010, at 11:22 AM, Beth Benoit wrote: > > > 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=13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263003&n=T&l=tips&o=3149 > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-3149-13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > > > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aaf72&n=T&l=tips&o=3152 > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-3152-13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aa...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > --- 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=3154 or send a blank email to leave-3154-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
