What are we doing about contract cheating? Seminar – 20 March 2018
28 February 2018
Contract cheating is an increasingly concerning issue for universities across the globe – but can markers be trained to accurately detect contract cheating in student work? Join us for the first CRADLE seminar for 2018, as CRADLE Fellow A/Prof. Wendy Sutherland-Smith outlines what’s happening internationally in the field of contract cheating awareness and detection, before discussing local responses to contract cheating both nationally and within Deakin.
| When? | 2.00 pm to 3.30 pm, Tuesday 20 March 2018 |
| Where? | Deakin Downtown – Level 12, Tower 2, 727 Collins Street, Melbourne (Collins Square). VMP and on-campus options are also available |
| Catering? | Afternoon tea will be provided |
| Cost? | This is a free event |
| Register? | Register here! |
Many contract cheating sites guarantee that their products are undetectable, a claim which threatens to undermine the value of assessing student work, destabilise student learning, and disguise students’ true attainment of graduate skills and competencies. Wendy will discuss two studies examining whether markers can be trained to accurately detect contract cheating in student work, in which real student assignments and bespoke assignments, purchased from a range of contract cheating providers, were marked by Deakin markers. The research team measured markers’ sensitivity (accuracy in detecting contract-cheated work) and specificity (accuracy identifying real student work and not falsely identifying real work as contract-cheated). Results suggest that markers can be trained to detect contract-cheated assignments, and that cheated work is not as undetectable as websites claim. Wendy will also provide tips for markers about detecting contract cheating, and offer ideas designing assessment to help deter and detect contract cheating.
Wendy is Director of Teaching and Learning and Deputy Chair of the Academic Integrity Committee in Deakin University’s School of Psychology. She is a CRADLE Fellow and has been actively researching the area of contract cheating with CRADLE’s A/Prof. Phillip Dawson. She has researched issues of academic integrity, such as plagiarism and collusion, since the 1990s and has published extensively in the field.
