The Implications of Plagiarism and Contract Cheating for the Assessment of Database Modules -...

1#contractcheating #tlad2015

The Implications of Plagiarism and Contract Cheating for the

Assessment of Database Modules

Dr. Thomas Lancaster and Robert ClarkeTeaching, Learning and Assessment in Databases

Friday, 3 July 2015

http://thomaslancaster.co.uk/



Background




Our Role In Academic Integrity Research

Dr. Thomas Lancaster

Senior Lecturer in ComputingSenior Fellow of the Higher Education AcademyPhD “Effective And Efficient Plagiarism Detection”Programme Leader BSc Computer Science

Robert Clarke

Educational Consultant at SCLVisiting Lecturer/Former Principal Lecturer30 Years Experience Teaching At BCUHas Collected Over 25,000 Attempts By Students Worldwide At Contract Cheating




Working Definitions

Plagiarism – Student uses the words or ideas of a third party, without acknowledgement

Contract Cheating – Student uses a third party to have a bespoke piece of work created for them, without acknowledgement




Cheating Is Big Business

Channel 4 Dispatches – 15 June 2015

“Dr. Thomas Lancaster, Britain’s leading expert on academic cheating says: ‘The vast majority of students of course are completely honest but I’ve seen estimates of £200 million a year going through these [essay writing] sites.’ ”

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/dispatches-investigation-reveals-extent-of-student-plagiarism






2015 Cheating Scandal In Australia

Four Corners – 21 April 2015http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/04/20/4217741.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/04/20/4217741.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/04/20/4217741.htm




https://twitter.com/workmanalice






Database Cheating – Some Figures

Russell and Cumming (2005)• Algorithms used to find plagiarism in SQL exercises• Identified 9% to 12% dishonest answers

McCart and Jarman (2008)• “Properties” in MS Access databases checked• Found 4.6% to 6.7% identical creation times

McCart, J. & Jarman, J. (2008). A technological tool to detect plagiarized projects in Microsoft Access. IEEE Transactions on Education, 51(2), pp. 166-173.

Russell, G. and Cumming, A. (2005). On-line assessment and checking of SQL: detecting and preventing plagiarism. In Proceedings of the Third Higher Education Academy Workshop on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases, Sunderland, UK.




Contract Cheating In Database Modules

(Sample of 910 Computing assignments found on RentACoder.com between Mar 2004 and December 2006)

• Database – implementation• Database – design• Major Project

Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2007). Assessing contract cheating through auction sites – a computing perspective; 8th Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Information and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, August 2007.




Examples From Freelancer.com




Case Study – Design and Implement




Design and Implement




SAP Example




Relational Modelling




Project With Deliverables




SQL Statements From ERD

Hi Guys, I am studying Database Management Systems and I have to submit an assignment on Database.

Specifications (Case Study): It is an accounting company name "CQR"

You have to Implement database based on the provided ER diagram and Database Schema and Write SQL Statements to query the database.




Mountain View Community Hospital Case Study




Mountain View Community Hospital Google Search




Based on MS Northwind DB




Solution to Northwind DB




Other Solutions to Northwind




Stock Solutions




Database Search At




Working Around The Implications




Some Possible Recommendations (i)

Track student access to database workspaces Monger et al (2009)

Provide strong warnings to students that they are being tracked

Monger et al (2009)

Develop parsers for database assignments to use with Moss and JPlagUse existing database detection solutions (such as ActiveSQL)

Russell and Cumming (2005)

Monger, A., Baron, S. and Lu, J. (2009). More on Oracle APEX for teaching and learning. In Proceedings of the Seventh Higher Education Academy Workshop on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases, Birmingham, UK.

Russell, G. and Cumming, A. (2005). On-line assessment and checking of SQL: detecting and preventing plagiarism. In Proceedings of the Third Higher Education Academy Workshop on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases, Sunderland, UK.




Some Possible Recommendations (ii)Use “stylometics” to assess the writing style/development style of students and look for consistencyProvide students with a pre-populated database with hidden “track changes” table

Singh (2013)

Compare metrics extracted from the databases, such as “Creation Date”

McCart and Jarman (2008)

Develop “Doctupus” like functionality to track student interaction with databases across a cohort

Doctopus (n.d.)Khan (2015)

Doctopus (n.d.). Available at http://doctupus.com.

Khan, W. (2015). Plagiarism detection 2.0: detection of contract cheating. International Conference – Plagiarism Across Europe and Beyond, Brno, Czech Republic.

McCart, J. & Jarman, J. (2008). A technological tool to detect plagiarized projects in Microsoft Access. IEEE Transactions on Education, 51(2), pp. 166-173.

Singh, A. (2013). Detecting plagiarism in MS Access assignments. Journal of Information Systems Education, 24(3), pp. 177-180.

http://doctupus.com/

http://doctupus.com/




Doctupus

Khan, W. (2015). Plagiarism detection 2.0: detection of contract cheating. International Conference – Plagiarism Across Europe and Beyond, Brno, Czech Republic.

https://vimeo.com/130263579






Some Possible Recommendations (iii)Audit all assignment briefs for originality, ease of outsourcing and anti-cheating measuresMake implementation only a small part of assessment Monger et al (2009)

Require a presentation or viva Monger et al (2009)

Give students individual coursework exercises

Use practical examinations and written examinations in place of/in addition to courseworkProvide examination questions which are based on the knowledge gained during coursework production

Nelson et al (2003)

Monger, A., Baron, S. and Lu, J. (2009). More on Oracle APEX for teaching and learning. In Proceedings of the Seventh Higher Education Academy Workshop on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases, Birmingham, UK.

Nelson, D. Stirk, S., Patience, S. and Green, C. (2003). An evaluation of diverse database teaching curriculum and the impact of research. In Proceedings of the Workshop on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases, Coventry, UK.




Possible Application To Final Year Database Project

Project topics proposed by staff/students reviewed to ensure that they are originalProject topics provided by students modified, to ensure no off-the-shelf/translated solutionsRegular monitoring of student progress required - and documentedFinal written project report assesses academic skillsFinal project requires a practical componentPresentation given on written report (filmed for evidence)Technical viva on practical component (filmed for evidence)Assessors kept independent to supervisors




What Does Allowing Cheating In Database Modules Lead To?




Assignment Request

One of multiple assignment requests posted by “poopie”.




Poopie’s Provided Details (Available to the public on RentACoder)

http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/BidRequests/ShowBidRequest.asp?lngBidRequestId=871381







Patients’ Oncology Database


Names, addresses and details of 1688 patients






First Record

Last Record




These Are Real People

Found using name and telephone numbersearches




Should We Be Concerned About The Implications of Plagiarism and Contract Cheating for Database Modules?




Further Resources




References For Our Contract Cheating Work

Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2015), Contract Cheating – The Outsourcing Of Assessed Student Work, in Handbook of Academic Integrity, Bretag, T. (editor): SpringerReference.

Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2014), An Observational Analysis Of The Range And Extent Of Contract Cheating From Online Courses Found On Agency Websites; 8th International Conference on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems (CISIS 2014), Birmingham City University, UK, July 2014.

Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2014), An Initial Analysis Of The Contextual Information Available Within Auction Posts On Contract Cheating Agency Websites, 28th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications, University of Victoria, May 2014

Lancaster, T. and Clarke, R. (2014), Using Turnitin As A Tool For Attribution In Cases Of Contract Cheating; 3rd Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, April 2014.

Clarke, R. and Lancaster, T. (2013). Commercial Aspects Of Contract Cheating; 8th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK, July 2013.

Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2012). Dealing With Contract Cheating: A Question Of Attribution; 1st Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Imperial College, London, April 2012.

Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2010). Staff-Led Individualised Assessment – A Case Study; 11th Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Information and Computer Sciences, Durham University, August 2010.

Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2008). How to Succeed at Cheating Without Really Trying: Five Top Tips for Successful Cheating; 9th Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Information and Computer Sciences, Liverpool Hope University, August 2008.

Clarke, R, and Lancaster, T (2007). Establishing a Systematic Six-Stage Process for Detecting Contract Cheating; The Second International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Applications, Birmingham City University, July 2007.

Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2007). Assessing Contract Cheating Through Auction Sites – A Computing Perspective; 8th Annual Higher Education Academy Conference in Information and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, August 2007.

Lancaster, T and Clarke, R (2007) The Phenomena of Contract Cheating, in Student Plagiarism in an Online World: Problems and solutions, Roberts, T. S. (editor), Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA: Idea Group Inc.

Clarke, R and Lancaster, T (2006). Eliminating The Successor To Plagiarism? Identifying The Usage Of Contract Cheating Sites; 2nd Plagiarism: Prevention, Practice and Policy Conference 2006 - Newcastle, UK, June 2006.




For More Information

General Resources:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_cheatinghttp://contractcheating.com

Contract Cheating Special Interest Group (supported by the Higher Education Academy):https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=CONTRACTCHEATING

Slides Available At:http://www.slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_cheating

http://contractcheating.com/

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=CONTRACTCHEATING

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=CONTRACTCHEATING

http://www.slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster

http://www.slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster




Our Contact Details

Thomas LancasterEmail: [email protected]: http://thomaslancaster.co.ukTwitter: @DrLancaster

Robert ClarkeEmail: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


https://twitter.com/DrLancaster

https://twitter.com/DrLancaster

mailto:[email protected]



The Implications of Plagiarism and Contract Cheating for the Assessment of Database Modules -...

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