Contract cheating alerts
TEQSA have issued two sector alerts regarding contract聽聽to students on campuses, and social media promotions聽聽in exchange for uploading course materials or assignments to file-sharing websites.聽
The promotion or sale of academic cheating services is illegal in Australia. Using contract cheating services is a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy.
How can I help students to understand the risks?
Students need our help to identify these services, which often style themselves as legitimate tutoring or 鈥渁ssignment help鈥 services, and even as University-approved academic support.
- Share this聽聽with your colleagues and students
- Take some time in your lectures or workshops to discuss contract cheating and academic integrity
- Direct students to the University鈥檚聽Academic Integrity website, which offers explanations of our policy, upskilling modules and case studies, and further information about聽contract cheating.
- Remind students about free, University-approved academic support services such as PASS, the Maths Learning Centre, the Writing Centre, and Studiosity.
Case Study
Tim (not his real name) is enrolled in his final year of an engineering degree. He has to complete a final year project with three聽other students. Each member of the group completes a separate part. To help the students the course coordinator has shared an exemplar of the task that he has used before on the course MyUni site.
Tim posts the exemplar to an online job site (where people can bid to complete work for others) together with the assessment outline which are linked to a google drive account. He doesn鈥檛 use his real name. Someone tries to open the link but it is broken and they write to Tim to let him know and he sends them the link to his googledrive. Without realising it this has also revealed his 成人大片 email address.
Someone else who is using the site alerts Tim鈥檚 teacher that a 成人大片 student has posted a job to the site requesting someone to complete the project work and write up the thesis.
The AIO contacted Tim to notify him of the allegation of academic misconduct and invited him to make a written submission and attend a meeting. Tim realised that the AIO had strong evidence of what had happened and in his written submission he admitted what had happened. At the meeting the AIO showed Tim additional evidence of the cheating and Tim admitted that in fact there was more to the story. He was permitted to revise his written submission and the AIO took this into account in the final decision about the outcome and penalty.
Tim did not have a previous record in the Academic Integrity Register.
The AIO found that Tim had聽breached the policy (contract cheating) with no genuine misunderstanding and he failed the course. His name was added to the Academic Integrity Register.
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