Contract cheating is a form of academic dishonesty in which students pay others to complete their coursework.[1] The term was coined in a 2006 study by Thomas Lancaster[2] and the late Robert Clarke (UK),[3][4][5][6] as a more inclusive way to talk about all forms of academic work, as opposed to more outdated terms such as "term paper mill" or "essay mill", which refer to text-based academic outsourcing. In contrast, Lancaster and Clarke are computer scientists who found evidence of students systematically outsourcing coding assignments. Hence, they coined the term "contract cheating" to include all outsourced academic work, regardless of whether it is from text-based or non-text-based disciplines.

Extent

edit

The first published material detailing the extent of contract cheating was a study by Robert Clarke and Thomas Lancaster.[4] The study presented three main findings:

  1. Over 12 percent of postings on a popular website for outsourcing computer contract work were actually bid requests from students seeking contract cheating services.
  2. Contract cheaters posted an average of 4–7 requests, suggesting that some students make habitual use of such services.
  3. A smaller number of users have posted over 50 bid requests, including examples from multiple institutions. This suggests that these are agencies subcontracting work, not students who are directly making use of the services.

A 2007 study examined more than 900 examples of contract cheating by students studying computing subjects. The published results categorised the assignment types (e.g. programming, database, web design, etc.) and were analysed by country. One new concern identified by this study was the number of major projects (both final-year undergraduate and postgraduate) that had been posted on auction sites.[7]

Research interest in contract cheating was significantly increased in the mid-2010s as a consequence of various scandals being reported in the media. For example, in 2014, Australian media exposed the MyMaster website, which provided custom-written assignments to hundreds of students.[8]

In a 2017 meta-analysis of five studies, 3.5% of a total of 1,378 students reported having bought assignments to submit as their own. Of the students who reported engaging in contract cheating, more than 60% admitted to having done so more than once.[9] A larger systematic review of 65 studies from 1978 to 2016 also found that 3.5% of students admitted to engaging in commercial contract cheating.[10] Subsequently, a study of over 14,000 Australian students found that 5.8% of students engaged in one of five behaviours classified as contract cheating, with 2.2% submitting assessments completed by other people.[11] However, a 2021 study argued that anonymous self-report surveys underestimate the extent of contract cheating, and using an incentivized truth-telling methods, it suggested that 7.9% of students buy and submit custom-written assignments while 11.4% submit assignments downloaded from file-sharing sites as their own.[12]

A study was presented at the April 2012 STEM conference involving more than 600 assignments in subject areas ranging from anthropology to theology.[13] There is debate about which subjects are most susceptible to contract cheating, but an overall consensus by several scholars, including Curtis & Clare (2017),[9] Bretag (2017),[14] Lancaster & Clarke (2015)[15] and Eaton (2019),[16] indicates that the following disciplines have the highest incidence:

  1. Business
  2. Engineering
  3. Sciences (including pre-medicine and health sciences)
  4. Humanities
  5. Education

The commercial aspects of contract cheating were examined in a paper given at the 2013 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education. This paper analysed the monetary value of contract cheating to the various parties who play roles in the contract cheating process. The main analysis was based on a corpus consisting of 14,438 identified attempts to cheat, collected between March 2005 and July 2012.[17][18]

Other prominent academic integrity scholars and experts include Tracey Bretag (Australia),[11][19][20] Cath Ellis (Australia),[21][11][19] and Sarah Elaine Eaton (Canada)[22][23][24][25] and Irene Glendinning (UK).[6]

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, increases in contract cheating were identified as being particularly problematic. Test and exam based assessments, which are typically conducted in invigilated halls, took place online as a social distancing measure; without the rigorous monitoring that is typically present in such assignments, opportunities for contract cheating over the Internet arose.[26][27][28][29]

Prevention

edit

Assessment design strategies may help to prevent contract cheating from occurring.[21][30][31] For example, individualized assessments have been shown to be effective against contract cheating.[32]

In addition, some institutions have taken pro-active measures to block access to contract cheating companies websites from campus users.[33] Since August 2022, Australia started blocking access to contract cheating sites nationally.[34][35]

Detection

edit

In July 2007, Lancaster and Clarke proposed a systematic six-stage process that tutors can use to detect students who are contract cheating.[36] Since then, additional research has been conducted with evidence now pointing to training for those who grade academic work being an important aspect of detection.[37][38][39]

The quality of solutions to assignments sold by essay mills has been questioned, though other research claims that academic work obtained through the use of an auction site was of sufficient quality to gain satisfactory grades and thus remain undetected by educators.[40] Contract cheating sites often boast that the use of their services is undetectable,[41] however such claims have been refuted by empirical research that shows educators can be effectively trained to detect contract cheating in student work.[41][42] There are now various resources available to educators to help train them on how to effectively identify contract cheating.[20][25][43][44][45]

It has been proposed that existing assignment and invigilated assessment data can be systematically analyzed in order to detect patterns of students' performance that may be indicative of contract cheating.[46] At the 2015 Plagiarism Across Europe and Beyond conference, it was demonstrated how collecting analytical data at the time of writing can help in identifying cases of contract cheating.[47][48]

Although text-matching software is unlikely to detect contract cheating, such tools have shown some success in identifying the source of assignments found on auction sites.[49]

Policy and penalties

edit

The way higher education institutions across the world address contract cheating is inconsistent. The UK[50] and Australia[51][52] have developed some of the world's most systematic approaches to addressing contract cheating through policies, quality assurance guidance, and corresponding penalties for students. Meanwhile, research and advocacy are underway in countries such as Canada,[53][22] to promote better understanding of how universities and colleges can address the issue through policy measures.

Some academic institutions consider contract cheating to be among the most serious forms of academic misconduct and penalise culpable students accordingly. In 2010, the Academic Misconduct Benchmarking Research Project (AMBeR) developed a plagiarism tariff in the UK in an attempt to standardise penalties for all forms of academic misconduct. The final report noted that purchase of an assignment should be penalised with the most serious measures available, such as expulsion from the institution, and that many institutions consider contract cheating as a separate form of misconduct altogether because of the seemingly obvious intent associated with it.[54] However, a 2015 UK research study that collected university students' opinions on appropriate penalties for academic misconduct demonstrated that students consistently recommended lenient penalties for plagiarism, and that this effect was most pronounced for contract cheating.[55][56][57]

Legality

edit

The legal status of these services varies internationally.[58] In 2020, it became illegal for third parties to provide academic work to students in Australia.[59] In New Zealand it is illegal to "advertise or provide third party assistance to cheat".[60]

In the United Kingdom, the Quality Assurance Agency published a report[61] advocating the use of a legal approach as one way to tackle contract cheating, and suggested that existing fraud laws might be used, since the activities of such services, and their clients, could be reasonably interpreted to fit with definitions of fraud, as they involve false representation and failure to disclose information. A subsequent research project[62] compared the UK fraud laws with the terms and conditions used by contract cheating services and concluded that such services would be unlikely to fall foul of fraud law because the disclaimers, terms and conditions the services provide generally state that any custom written products are to be used only as "study guides" or "revision aids", thereby placing responsibility and intent on the student client. In 2022, the Skills and Post-16 Education Act criminalised the provision of academic cheating services in England and Wales to students submitting work to English institutions—the unusual scope of this law relating to the devolved nature of the education competence in the United Kingdom.[63] Ireland and Austria have also passed similar prohibitions.[63]

Despite this, media stings have shown that companies can be complicit in the inappropriate use of these products.[64] A similar analysis in Lithuania[65] concluded that contract cheating services were unlikely to fall foul of existing laws, although an analysis of Australian[66] law concluded that fraud, as well as forgery and conspiracy, might be legal avenues via which contract cheating could be targeted. All three studies called for the introduction of new legal approaches to tackle contract cheating. Contract cheating is not illegal in Canada.[16]

A follow-up research study proposed new laws, based on the principle of strict liability, to lessen the requirement for prosecutors to demonstrate that contract cheaters intended to help students cheat, instead holding contract cheaters liable for prosecution simply for offering services that could be reasonably interpreted as being used for contract cheating.[67] Scholars have noted that such laws have created a situation where generative AI and large language model providers may be caught within the scope of these criminal offences, particularly in England and Wales and in Australia.[63]

More broadly, despite the apparent potential of a legal challenge to contract cheating companies, prosecutions are currently rare, largely because of the limitations of existing laws. In addition, the simple act of outlawing a service would not necessarily reduce demand for it; the aforementioned research studies all call for a holistic, multi-pronged approach to tackling contract cheating.[citation needed]

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Eaton, S. E., Curtis, G. J., Stoesz, B. M., Clare, J., Rundle, K., & Seeland, J., (Eds.). (2022). Contract cheating in higher education: Global perspectives on theory, practice, and policy. Palgrave-MacMillan. ISBN 978-3-031-12679-6 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12680-2
  2. ^ Lancaster, Thomas (December 2020). "Commercial contract cheating provision through micro-outsourcing web sites". International Journal for Educational Integrity. 16 (1): 1–14. doi:10.1007/s40979-020-00053-7. hdl:10044/1/89094. ISSN 1833-2595.
  3. ^ Lancaster, T., & Clarke, R. (2016). Contract cheating: The outsourcing of assessed student work. In T. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of academic integrity (pp. 639-654). Singapore: Springer Singapore.
  4. ^ a b Clarke, Robert; Lancaster, Thomas (2006-06-19). "Eliminating the successor to plagiarism? Identifying the usage of contract cheating sites". CiteSeerX 10.1.1.120.5440. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. ^ Thomas Lancaster bio Archived 2009-12-06 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ a b Glendinning, I., Foltýnek, T., Dlabolová, D., Linkeschová, D., & Lancaster, T. (2017). South East European Project on Policies for Academic Integrity. Retrieved from http://www.plagiarism.cz/seeppai/Final-report_SEEPPAI.pdf
  7. ^ Clarke, Robert; Lancaster, Thomas (2007-08-30). "Assessing Contract Cheating Through Auction Sites – A Computing Perspective" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-04-19. Retrieved 2007-09-13.
  8. ^ Visentin, Amy McNeilage and Lisa (2014-11-11). "Students enlist MyMaster website to write essays, assignments". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2022-08-03.
  9. ^ a b Curtis, Guy J.; Clare, Joseph (2017-04-20). "How Prevalent is Contract Cheating and to What Extent are Students Repeat Offenders?". Journal of Academic Ethics. 15 (2): 115–124. doi:10.1007/s10805-017-9278-x. ISSN 1570-1727. S2CID 151803975.
  10. ^ Newton, Philip M. (2018). "How Common Is Commercial Contract Cheating in Higher Education and Is It Increasing? A Systematic Review". Frontiers in Education. 3. doi:10.3389/feduc.2018.00067. ISSN 2504-284X.
  11. ^ a b c Bretag, Tracey; Harper, Rowena; Burton, Michael; Ellis, Cath; Newton, Philip; Rozenberg, Pearl; Saddiqui, Sonia; Haeringen, Karen van (2019-11-02). "Contract cheating: a survey of Australian university students". Studies in Higher Education. 44 (11): 1837–1856. doi:10.1080/03075079.2018.1462788. ISSN 0307-5079. S2CID 149924537.
  12. ^ Curtis, Guy J.; McNeill, Margot; Slade, Christine; Tremayne, Kell; Harper, Rowena; Rundle, Kiata; Greenaway, Ruth (2021-08-26). "Moving beyond self-reports to estimate the prevalence of commercial contract cheating: an Australian study". Studies in Higher Education. 47 (9): 1844–1856. doi:10.1080/03075079.2021.1972093. ISSN 0307-5079. S2CID 239673753.
  13. ^ Clarke, Robert; Lancaster, Thomas (2012-04-18). "Dealing with contract cheating: a question of attribution" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-05-03.
  14. ^ Bretag, T. (2017). Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, Good Practice Note: Addressing contract cheating to safeguard academic integrity  Retrieved from https://www.teqsa.gov.au/latest-news/publications/good-practice-note-addressing-contract-cheating-safeguard-academic
  15. ^ Lancaster, T., & Clarke, R. (2015). Examining contract cheating, essay mill use and academic misconduct by students on health courses.  Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323425525_Examining_Contract_Cheating_Essay_Mill_Use_and_Academic_Misconduct_by_Students_on_Health_Courses
  16. ^ a b Eaton, S. E. (2019, February 15). The Ethics of Outsourcing: Contract Cheating in Medicine and Health Sciences. Paper presented at the Orthopaedic Surgery Citywide Rounds, Calgary, Canada. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1880/110102
  17. ^ Clarke, Robert; Lancaster, Thomas (2013-07-01). "Commercial aspects of contract cheating". Proceedings of the 18th ACM conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education - ITiCSE '13. p. 219. doi:10.1145/2462476.2462497. ISBN 9781450320788. S2CID 14346305. Retrieved 2013-08-21.
  18. ^ Clarke, Robert; Lancaster, Thomas (2013-07-01). "Commercial aspects of contract cheating (Slides)". Retrieved 2013-08-21.
  19. ^ a b Bretag, Tracey; Harper, Rowena; Burton, Michael; Ellis, Cath; Newton, Philip; van Haeringen, Karen; Saddiqui, Sonia; Rozenberg, Pearl (2019-07-04). "Contract cheating and assessment design: exploring the relationship". Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 44 (5): 676–691. doi:10.1080/02602938.2018.1527892. ISSN 0260-2938. S2CID 149555997.
  20. ^ a b Bretag, T., & Harper, R. (n.d.). Impossible to prove? Substantiating contract cheating. Retrieved from https://cheatingandassessment.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/EDUCATOR-RESOURCE-Substantiating-contract-cheating.pdf
  21. ^ a b Ellis, Cath; van Haeringen, Karen; Harper, Rowena; Bretag, Tracey; Zucker, Ian; McBride, Scott; Rozenberg, Pearl; Newton, Phil; Saddiqui, Sonia (2020-04-15). "Does authentic assessment assure academic integrity? Evidence from contract cheating data". Higher Education Research & Development. 39 (3): 454–469. doi:10.1080/07294360.2019.1680956. ISSN 0729-4360. S2CID 210451768.
  22. ^ a b Eaton, Sarah Elaine; Chibry, Nancy; Toye, Margaret A.; Rossi, Silvia (2019). "Interinstitutional perspectives on contract cheating: a qualitative narrative exploration from Canada". International Journal for Educational Integrity. 15 (1): 1–17. doi:10.1007/s40979-019-0046-0. ISSN 1833-2595.
  23. ^ Eaton, S. E. (2018). Contract cheating: A Canadian perspective.  Retrieved from http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2018/07/24/contract-cheating-a-canadian-perspective/
  24. ^ Eaton, S. E. (2019). The Ethics of Outsourcing: Contract Cheating in Medicine and Health Sciences. Retrieved from hdl:1880/110102
  25. ^ a b Eaton, S. E. (2019). U Have Integrity: Educator Resource - How to Lead a Discovery Interview About Contract Cheating. Retrieved from hdl:1880/111077
  26. ^ Eaton, S. E. (2020). Academic Integrity During COVID-19: Reflections from the University of Calgary. International Studies in Educational Administration, 48(1), 80-85. Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/112293
  27. ^ White, A. (2020, March 23). Amanda White on education for and detection of contract cheating in virus times. Campus Morning Mail. Retrieved from https://campusmorningmail.com.au/news/education-for-and-detection-of-contract-cheating-in-the-age-of-covid-19/
  28. ^ Rossiter, S. (2020, June 21). Cheating becoming an unexpected COVID-19 side effect for universities. CBC News,. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/cheating-becoming-an-unexpected-covid-19-side-effect-for-universities-1.5620442
  29. ^ McKie, A. (2020, June 18). Essay mills ‘targeting students’ as pandemic crisis shifts HE online. Times Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/essay-mills-targeting-students-pandemic-crisis-shifts-he-online
  30. ^ Baird, Michael; Clare, Joseph (December 2017). "Removing the opportunity for contract cheating in business capstones: a crime prevention case study". International Journal for Educational Integrity. 13 (1): 6. doi:10.1007/s40979-017-0018-1. ISSN 1833-2595.
  31. ^ Wallace, Melisa J.; Newton, Philip M. (2014). "Turnaround time and market capacity in contract cheating" (PDF). Educational Studies. 40 (2): 233–236. doi:10.1080/03055698.2014.889597. S2CID 144807243.
  32. ^ "Individualized Assessments using Dividni - Enhancing Learning via Assessments Unique to Every Student"; ACM; February, 2020.
  33. ^ Seeland, Josh; Stoesz, Brenda M.; Vogt, Lisa (2020-06-05). "Preventing online shopping for completed assessments: Protecting students by blocking access to contract cheating websites on institutional networks". Canadian Perspectives on Academic Integrity. 3 (1): 55–69. doi:10.11575/cpai.v3i1.70256. ISSN 2561-6218.
  34. ^ "TEQSA action against academic cheating websites". TEQSA.
  35. ^ "TEQSA disrupts access to another 110 illegal academic cheating websites". TEQSA.
  36. ^ Clarke, Robert; Lancaster, Thomas (2007-07-26). "Establishing a Systematic Six-Stage Process for Detecting Contract Cheating". 2007 2nd International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Applications. pp. 342–347. doi:10.1109/ICPCA.2007.4365466. ISBN 978-1-4244-0970-9. S2CID 17565650.
  37. ^ Harper, Rowena; Bretag, Tracey; Rundle, Kiata (2020-02-16). "Detecting contract cheating: examining the role of assessment type". Higher Education Research & Development. 40 (2): 263–278. doi:10.1080/07294360.2020.1724899. ISSN 0729-4360. S2CID 212840143.
  38. ^ Clare, Joseph; Walker, Sonia; Hobson, Julia (2017). "Can we detect contract cheating using existing assessment data? Applying crime prevention theory to an academic integrity issue". International Journal for Educational Integrity. 13 (1): 4. doi:10.1007/s40979-017-0015-4. ISSN 1833-2595.
  39. ^ Rogerson, A. M. (2014, June). Detecting the work of essay mills and file swapping sites: some clues they leave behind. Paper presented at the 6th International Integrity and Plagiarism Conference, Newcastle-on-Tyne, United Kingdom.
  40. ^ "T. Jenkins and S. Helmore "Coursework for cash: the threat from on-line plagiarism", in Proceedings of 7th Annual Conference for Information and Computer Science, Dublin. Higher Education Academy pp121-126 (August 2006)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-10-04. Retrieved 2007-09-13.
  41. ^ a b Lines, Lisa (2016-11-16). "Ghostwriters guaranteeing grades? The quality of online ghostwriting services available to tertiary students in Australia". Teaching in Higher Education. 21 (8): 889–914. doi:10.1080/13562517.2016.1198759. ISSN 1356-2517. S2CID 147849126.
  42. ^ Dawson, Phillip; Sutherland-Smith, Wendy (2017-06-05). "Can markers detect contract cheating? Results from a pilot study". Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 43 (2): 286–293. doi:10.1080/02602938.2017.1336746. ISSN 0260-2938. S2CID 149121124.
  43. ^ Deakin University: CRADLE. (2018). How to detect contract cheating. Retrieved from https://www.deakin.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1853881/01-cradle-detect-contract-cheating.pdf
  44. ^ Sambell, K., Brown, S., & Race, P. (n.d.). ENhance QUICK GUIDE: Combatting Contract Cheating. Retrieved from https://staff.napier.ac.uk/services/dlte/Documents/14%20Combatting%20Contract%20Cheating.pdf
  45. ^ UC San Diego. (n.d.). Detecting Contract Cheating in Narrative Assessments. Retrieved from https://academicintegrity.ucsd.edu/_files/Detecting%20Contract%20Cheating.pdf
  46. ^ Clare, Joseph; Walker, Sonia; Hobson, Julia (2017-08-08). "Can we detect contract cheating using existing assessment data? Applying crime prevention theory to an academic integrity issue". International Journal for Educational Integrity. 13 (1): 4. doi:10.1007/s40979-017-0015-4. ISSN 1833-2595.
  47. ^ Khan, Wasi (2015). Plagiarism detection 2.0: Detection of Contract Cheating (PDF). Plagiarism Across Europe and Beyond. Brno: Mendel University. p. 215.
  48. ^ Khan, Wasi (Presenter) (Aug 3, 2015). Plagiarism Across Europe and Beyond (Motion picture). Brno, Czech Republic: Plagiarism Across Europe and Beyond. Retrieved November 12, 2017.
  49. ^ Clarke, Robert; Lancaster, Thomas (2014-04-13). "Using Turnitin as a tool for attribution in cases of contract cheating". Retrieved 2014-10-28.
  50. ^ Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (UK) (QAA). (2020). Contracting to cheat in higher education: How to address essay mills and contract cheating(2nd. ed.). Retrieved from https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/guidance/contracting-to-cheat-in-higher-education-2nd-edition.pdf
  51. ^ Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). (2017). Good Practice Note: Addressing contract cheating to safeguard academic integrity. Retrieved from https://www.teqsa.gov.au/sites/g/files/net2046/f/good-practice-note-addressing-contract-cheating.pdf?v=1507082628
  52. ^ International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE). (2020). Toolkit to support quality assurance agencies to address academic integrity and contract cheating. Retrieved from https://www.teqsa.gov.au/latest-news/publications/toolkit-support-quality-assurance-agencies-address-academic-integrity
  53. ^ Stoesz, Brenda M.; Eaton, Sarah Elaine; Miron, Jennifer; Thacker, Emma J. (2019). "Academic integrity and contract cheating policy analysis of colleges in Ontario, Canada". International Journal for Educational Integrity. 15 (1): 1–18. doi:10.1007/s40979-019-0042-4. ISSN 1833-2595.
  54. ^ "Plagiarism tariff: let the punishment fit the demerit points". Times Higher Education (THE). 2010-06-16. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
  55. ^ "Academic integrity: a quantitative study of confidence and understanding in students at the start of their higher education". Retrieved 22 May 2016.
  56. ^ "Hundreds fail to spot plagiarism". Times Higher Education (THE). 2015-04-22. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
  57. ^ Newton, Philip (2016). "Academic integrity: a quantitative study of confidence and understanding in students at the start of their higher education". Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 41 (3): 482–497. doi:10.1080/02602938.2015.1024199. S2CID 144164927.
  58. ^ Newton, Philip M.; Lang, Christopher (1 January 2016). "Custom Essay Writers, Freelancers, and Other Paid Third Parties". In Bretag, Tracey (ed.). Handbook of Academic Integrity. Springer Singapore. pp. 249–271. doi:10.1007/978-981-287-098-8_38. ISBN 978-981-287-097-1.
  59. ^ Parliament of Australia. (2020). Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment (Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services) Bill 2019. Retrieved from https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd1920a/20bd084
  60. ^ "Education and Training Act 2020 (New Zealand)".
  61. ^ "Education, deterrence, detection: how to tackle the problem of essay mills". QAA news. 2016-08-18. Archived from the original on 19 September 2016.
  62. ^ Draper, Michael J.; Ibezim, Victoria; Newton, Philip M. (2017). "Are Essay Mills committing fraud? An analysis of their behaviours vs the 2006 Fraud Act (UK)". International Journal for Educational Integrity. 13 (1): 3. doi:10.1007/s40979-017-0014-5.
  63. ^ a b c Gaumann, Noëlle; Veale, Michael (7 September 2023). "AI Providers as Criminal Essay Mills? Large Language Models meet Contract Cheating Law". UCL Faculty of Laws. doi:10.31235/osf.io/cpbfd.
  64. ^ Robin Henry; Cal Flyn; Katie Glass (15 June 2014). "'£630 and I'll put you on the way to a first'". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on July 1, 2014.
  65. ^ Tauginienė, Loreta; Jurkevičius, Vaidas (2017). "Ethical and legal observations on contract cheating services as an agreement". International Journal for Educational Integrity. 13 (1): 9. doi:10.1007/s40979-017-0020-7.
  66. ^ Steel, Alex (18 September 2017). "Contract cheating: Will students pay for serious criminal consequences?". Alternative Law Journal. 42 (2): 123–129. doi:10.1177/1037969x17710627. S2CID 149001364.
  67. ^ Draper, Michael J.; Newton, Philip M. (2017). "A legal approach to tackling contract cheating?" (PDF). International Journal for Educational Integrity. 13 (1): 11. doi:10.1007/s40979-017-0022-5. S2CID 7714459.
edit