{"id":3191,"date":"2016-11-30T17:04:33","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T06:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sydney.edu.au\/education-portfolio\/ei\/teaching@sydney\/?p=3191"},"modified":"2016-12-10T12:31:59","modified_gmt":"2016-12-10T01:31:59","slug":"contract-cheating-assessment-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/contract-cheating-assessment-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Contract Cheating and Assessment Design"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/nsw\/mymaster-essay-cheating-scandal-more-than-70-university-students-face-suspension-20150312-1425oe.html\">MyMaster scandal<\/a> involving several prominent NSW universities in 2015 highlighted the proliferation\u00a0of contract\u00a0cheating (or ghostwriting) of student assignments as a significant problem facing\u00a0all Australian universities.<\/p>\n<p>Associate Professor Tracey Bretag and Dr Rowena Harper of\u00a0the University of South Australia are now investigating this phenomenon through an\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.olt.gov.au\/\">Office for Learning and Teaching<\/a> Strategic Priority Project. Project partners include\u00a0colleagues\u00a0from\u00a0the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales, Griffith University, and Swansea University (UK)<em>. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Contract Cheating and Assessment Design: Exploring the Connection<\/em><\/strong> is a nationwide project aiming\u00a0to explore\u00a0if and how authentic assessment may be used to assure academic integrity.\u00a0The investigators are\u00a0particularly concerned with exploring:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the\u00a0role of assessment\u00a0design as both a cause of and possible solution to\u00a0the problem of contract cheating;<\/li>\n<li>if there are\u00a0particular assessment strategies that can be used to deter students from resorting to contract cheating; and<\/li>\n<li>whether\u00a0the risk of contract\u00a0cheating can be \u201cdesigned out\u201d of assessments altogether.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In exploring these issues, the project focuses on the views and experiences of two critical stakeholders in academic integrity \u2013 students and teaching staff. Participants will take part in surveys to further investigate the nature and scope of contract cheating. The project will also analyse data that demonstrate which types of assignments are most commonly contracted out to third parties.<\/p>\n<p>It is anticipated\u00a0that the findings emerging from the project will improve our understanding of this critical issue. In doing so, the project team hope to develop\u00a0proactive, evidence-based learning and teaching strategies to support universities in future.<\/p>\n<p>For more information, please visit the <a href=\"https:\/\/cheatingandassessment.edu.au\/\">project website.<\/a> <strong>There is also the opportunity for staff to participate in the study<\/strong> via an anonymous survey at the <a href=\"https:\/\/intranet.sydney.edu.au\/teaching-support\/teaching-support\/educational-integrity.html\">educational integrity intranet site<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The MyMaster scandal involving several prominent NSW universities in 2015 highlighted the proliferation\u00a0of contract\u00a0cheating (or ghostwriting) of student assignments as a significant problem facing\u00a0all&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":3203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,59],"tags":[158,110],"coauthors":[503],"class_list":["post-3191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-events","category-teaching-research","tag-academic-integrity","tag-assessment","post-item","post-even"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3191"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3206,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191\/revisions\/3206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3191"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}