A survey of 1,000 higher-education instructors found that
32% said they suspected students of turning in work that was done by someone
else. The study also noted that two of three instructors said they didn’t act
on their suspicion because of “insufficient evidence.”
Plagiarism-detection services are available to combat ghostwriting
services. One online firm, Turnitin, is launching a new product later this year,
called Authorship Investigation, that uses machine-learning algorithms to alert
instructors to assignments potentially written by someone other than students
in their class.
Just having such detection technology could deter
students from hiring others to do their homework, according to Derek Newton, in
his eCampus News report on combating contract cheating. However, he also pointed out other ways to stop
cheating that don’t require an investment.
Assigning students to do at least one writing assignment
during class makes it easier to spot cheating on writing done outside the
classroom. For online courses, instructors should consider assignments that can
only be completed with the student logged in and with a set time limit to
finish.
While there’s nothing illegal about ghostwriters
advertising their services on websites such as craigslist, school inquiries could
make content providers leery about adding new customers. College leaders might also
consider penalties if it’s proven that students are employing a ghostwriting
service that’s been used in the past by others.
“While
it’s a fool’s errand to try to eradicate cheating entirely, contracted work
production remains among the last, wholly untouched fields of fraud and,
because it is, every turn of the vise to squeeze it is both necessary and
helpful,” Newton wrote.
