Cheating and Academic Integrity: an International Perspective on ‘The Shadow Scholar’

Like many readers, I was shocked when I read this article, published recently in The Chronicle of Higher Education, on the issue of students, purportedly a good number of them international students, using custom essay writing services offered by paid providers. What most surprised me was the level of sophistication of this activity and, of course, the cynical perspective provided by Mr. Dante, the so-called “shadow scholar.” Is it true that there is a whole industry being created around the writing of school assignments? Apparently, like it or not, it looks like this is the case. Also, unsettling as it may be, this account at least provides an opportunity for serious discussion and analysis of this real problem in higher education.

It is clear to me that the disturbing act of cheating through commissioning the writing of academic papers results from a combination of factors. They include, among other things, the poor ethics of both cheating students and of the writers doing academic work for a fee; the teachers’ unwillingness or incapacity to verify the authenticity and ownership of the work submitted by students; institutionally induced increased class sizes, which make it more difficult for teachers to follow-up on the individual work of students; and the emergence of technology as an enabler of rapid communication and transfer of information anywhere and anytime.

Is this a problem unique to the U.S.? No. Unfortunately, this problem plagues most countries. Services like the one described by Mr. Dante are available in many countries, in many languages, and at varying prices. A simple search on Google produces hundreds of sites offering these services. In my visits to universities in different countries I frequently find related information –sometimes even published in school newspapers – about companies or just entrepreneurial individuals offering a variety of services pompously named academic tutoring, writing coaching, language polishing, proof-editing, and even more plainly, writing of papers or even theses. The U.S. is not the exception.

Is this a problem that will disappear? I am afraid that is improbable. It is simple economics. As long as teachers create a demand for these services by requiring independent papers and written projects, some students will be ready to pay for essay writing services, especially when they know that the verification of the work’s authenticity is difficult. Under these conditions, suppliers will continue to avail their writing services. Ultimately, in today’s higher education environment, cheaters know that this practice is feasible and that in an overwhelming majority of cases no one gets caught.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the average number of students per classroom has been increasing in the U.S. as it has in most other countries, and there has been a concurrent proliferation of distance education based courses. Evidently, the larger the class size, the lesser is the available opportunity for close interaction and supervision of students by the teacher.

When I was teaching at the National University of Mexico, some years ago, I found it impossible to evaluate individual academic papers for my over 300 students, so I had to implement other types of evaluation. More recently, I vividly remember my visit to University of Alexandria in Egypt, where an average sized class in some cases was 1,500 students (yes, 1,500!). When I asked faculty members how they evaluate student learning they just smiled at me. Their silence provided an obvious response.

Is there something we can do to reduce this problem? Yes. Institutions must be serious in providing plenty of information and guidance to new students about which practices are acceptable and which are not. Some institutions, such as American University, have established mandatory entrance courses on Academic Integrity and Academic Writing in which they not only guide students on how to improve their writing, but also educate their students to understand what they consider the meaning of academic integrity to be and how to achieve it by preventing practices that are not acceptable. This is especially important in the case of international students considering that in some countries the limits and meaning of those terms are different.

At the classroom level, there is no doubt that faculty members can and must do more. As a colleague with longstanding experience in teaching explained to me, a very simple way to corroborate the authenticity of the work by the student is to ask for an abstract written in the classroom and compare it later with the previously finished work. Additional ways are to require an improvised oral presentation or to connect what the student has presented to specific questions on a test. In other words, more thought and dedication from faculty members could help to reduce this problem. Unfortunately, teachers do not always have additional time available to provide for these added procedures nor the willingness to implement them for their students.

Another way to reduce the temptation for students looking for outside help is establishing more realistic academic expectations and better connecting regular in-class assignments with the expected outcomes. Let’s be honest – we know that some faculty members often assign work as if their class is the only one the student is taking and require that they read and digest wildly excessive amounts of material, which everyone involved knows will ultimately not be read, at least not with the profundity that the teacher would like. Assuming that the student will produce a decent final paper well-connected to all the material that he or she did not have the time or interest to read is simply unrealistic. I am not arguing that faculty members should reduce the academic rigor of their courses, but rather that some of them need to be more realistic about what can reasonably be achieved. Volume doesn’t equate with quality.

Then there is the case of international students who are studying in the U.S. in a second language. The “shadow scholar” talks about ELS students as among his main clients. Portraying foreign students as cheaters does a great disservice to the majority of honest ones among them and contributes to reinforcing negative stereotypes about these students. Obviously, if institutions are accepting students –both foreign and domestic- with limited language proficiency, one can expect that it is the responsibility of the institution to provide conditions for those incoming students within which they can reach the minimum language proficiency standards and also to establish appropriate filters preventing students who cannot attain the minimum standards from studying at the institution. Institutions cannot play the ambiguous role of, on the one hand, responding to budgetary concerns by increasing international enrollment through some form of relaxation of language proficiency standards and, on the other hand, doing nothing or an inadequate job of remediating those deficiencies once students are on campus. In other words, more and better evaluation is required.

In the U.S., foreign students are expected to have a minimum level of English language competency usually measured by achieving a certain score on the TOEFL. There has been plenty of work done by many scholars showing that the TOEFL only partially measures English fluency. Is the solution then to establish stricter English competency entrance requirements? I don’t think so. In my opinion, the real issue is not whether the student can write correctly in English (which can be resolved with remedial education or even just a good translation), but rather whether or not the student can effectively search for information, correctly articulate ideas, and build a coherent argument, even if it is in the student’s own native language. Let’s not forget that language is merely a means – albeit a very important one – for the transmission of knowledge rather that an end in and of itself.

At the very least Dante’s article has value in forcing us to place this issue on the examination table where it can be discussed and addressed. Are we prepared for this conversation in U.S. higher education?