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Many file sharing sites contain a section of the site which can be used for contract cheating purposes, often billed as providing “homework help”. Contract cheating, originally discussed by Clarke and Lancaster ( 2006), takes place when a student employs a third party to complete assessed work for them. In many ways, these sites can be considered as an extension of traditional fraternity-based archives of previous assignment solutions, designed to give fraternity members an unfair advantage.Īlthough file sharing sites are already ethically questionable, a further challenge comes when they can also be used for commercial contract cheating purposes. This is not a complete list and file sharing sites exist aimed at only at individual universities and in several languages. Example file sharing sites include OneClass ( 2020), Chegg ( 2020), Course Hero ( 2020) and Thinkswap ( 2020). These terms include crowd sourcing sites, study aid sites and peer-to-peer platforms. Various terms are used to be describe file sharing sites, including in the literature and by the sites themselves. The use of file sharing sites to breach academic integrity has received little attention in the academic literature. They estimate the value of a programme refreshed every 5 years as being $3.5 million USD over that time period, a sizeable value potentially lost from educational providers. Dixon and George ( 2020) review the value of content on a single file sharing site and estimate that the materials for a frequently taught course at a single university cost $70,000 United States Dollars (USD) to produce. As well as breaching copyright and instructor rights of intellectual property, this also has commercial implications for educational providers. Often a barter system is used, with other students encouraged to upload more materials so that they can themselves get access to other resources and answers. These providers then sell materials which they have no ownership claim over to other students. Although student collaboration is often encouraged within an educational setting, a challenge with file sharing comes when students share files owned by a university with commercial providers. Rogerson and Basanta ( 2016) define file sharing as being “ when academic lecture materials, notes, assessment tasks, answers, and responses are shared, swapped, and traded over Internet-based sites in fee, free, or barter (credit/exchange) arrangements”.
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The period of growth coincides with the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated necessary increase in online teaching and assessment within education. This paper reports on the growth of how a single market leading file sharing website has been used for contract cheating purposes. The paper concludes by recommending that academic institutions put interventions in place to minimise the risk to educational standards posed by sites such as Chegg, particularly since increased online teaching and assessment may continue after the pandemic. The growing number of requests indicates that students are using Chegg for assessment and exam help frequently and in a way that is not considered permissible by universities. This increase corresponds with the time when many courses moved to be delivered and assessed online.
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The number of student requests posted for these five subjects increased by 196.25% comparing the time period April 2019 to August 2019 with the period April 2020 to August 2020. They demonstrate that contract cheating requests can be put live and answered within the short duration of an examination. The results show that students are using Chegg to request exam style questions. With pandemic led safety considerations leading to increased online teaching and assessment, the paper analyses data relating to how Chegg is used by students in five STEM subjects, namely Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics and Chemistry.
#UNUSUAL AMOUNT OF ACTIVITY ON CHEGG REDDIT CODE#
As this paper demonstrates, Chegg can and is used for contract cheating This is despite the apparent existence of an Honour Code on Chegg which asks students not to breach academic integrity. Chegg is often presented as a file sharing site in the academic literature, but that is just one of many ways in which it can be used. This paper analyses the use of one such site, Chegg, which offers “homework help” and other academic services to students. Students are using file sharing sites to breach academic integrity in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.