In this session, Eaton examines how a systems approach is needed to address contract cheating in its various forms. Using the 4M framework, Eaton demonstrates the role of the individual (micro), the department (meso), the learning organization (macro) and stakeholders beyond the institution (mega). In this session, Eaton shares insights from her…

Purpose: The goal of this session is to provide an in-depth account of the history and development of contract cheating in Canada over the past 50+ years. You will also learn about the one and only (failed) attempt at legislation to make ghostwritten essays and exams illegal in Canada. Method: The content of this session is drawn from Eaton's book…

Purpose: In this study I explore the historical development of academic integrity in Canadian higher education. Theory and method: Framed within the theory of historical agency, applied at a macro rather than an individual level, I analyze a variety of sources to show how the development of student conduct (and its management) in Canada have…

The use of essay mills and other online sites to buy academic work is a global industry estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The practice is known as "contract cheating" (Clarke & Lancaster, 2006), and it occurs when a student engages with a third party to complete academic work on their behalf. Canada lags behind…

The COVID-19 crisis challenged us to learn, teach, and work in ways we never had before. As we move further into 2021 more educational institutions are thinking about how online teaching and learning can become a permanent way of offering programs. However, there are still ethical considerations that merit deeper consideration. Before the…

Plagiarism continues to be an issue in postsecondary contexts. This paper discusses how educators can take a proactive stance to prevent plagiarism and cultivate students' sense of honour and academic integrity, rather than focusing on punitive consequences after plagiarism has already occurred. Strategies include assessment design, formative…

This field report is the ninth in a series produced by the Center on Innovations in Learning's League of Innovators. The series describes, discusses, and analyzes policies and practices that enable personalization in education. This report introduces sessions from the "Conversations with Innovators" event held at Temple University, June…

Accountability and performance incentive plans in education are compromised by goal distortion, gaming, and corruption. Education policy makers who design such plans have paid insufficient attention to similar experiences in other fields. This paper describes institutions in health care, job training and welfare administration, and in the private…

Careful management of a testing program can greatly limit a teacher's opportunity to cheat while administering standardized tests to students and can increase the likelihood that such cheating will be detected. The Austin Independent School District's systemwide testing staff's plan for controlling cheating has three basic premises: (1) plan and…

Studentship, the focus of this study, is the process by which students react to the demands of the training environment. It consists of a perspective on the process of professional training that allows students to determine which dispositions they intend to acquire and which they will choose to ignore. Studentship also consists of an array of…

This paper argues that corruption is used on a systematic basis as a mechanism of direct and indirect administrative control from the state level down to local authorities and administrations of public and private institutions. Informal approval of corrupt activities in exchange for loyalty and compliance with the regime is commonplace in many…

Due to a concern regarding the validity of Chicago public elementary schools standardized test scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, a test audit was conducted. The audit was limited to 40 schools. Two schools were selected from each of the 20 administrative districts, with each school testing one seventh- and one eighth-grade class. These…

Recalling several recent catastrophic examples of unethical behavior among engineers, this paper examines some of the obvious and non-obvious consequences of academic dishonesty as it occurs in engineering courses. The results of several studies relating to the extent of cheating in engineering courses, as well as the reasons for cheating are…

Some of the major research in the area of assessment, concentrating on distance learning, is reviewed, and a strategy that can be used as a guideline for assessment of distance learning, and particularly World Wide Web-based courses, is introduced. A review of assessment strategies confirms that a balance between knowledge acquisition and…

In 1980, Oregon State University began a program going beyond the usual procedure for students of English as a second language (ESL), which involved putting them in intensive English programs until they could pass the Test of English as a Foreign Language and then sending them on to a regular academic program. It was found that this traditional…