The sharing economy has muddied the waters around the younger generation¡¯s understanding of academic integrity, and universities¡¯ ¡°transactional monetary relationship with their students¡± has made things worse.

Grant Klinkum, chief executive of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, said a ¡°variation of values¡± around issues like cheating was symptomatic of the ¡°productisation¡± of higher education. ¡°Assessments might increasingly be seen as¡­another product that can be just traded and shared,¡± he told the conference of Australia¡¯s Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa).

Dr Klinkum related a story about an educator¡¯s son who had responded to a Facebook advertisement to complete another student¡¯s assessment for a fee. Confronted by his ¡°mystified¡± parents, the otherwise ¡°upstanding¡± young man ¡°really could not see what the problem was¡±.

¡°Some of our values, based on some Renaissance idea of the value and importance of intellectual endeavour and so on, may not be shared by increasing numbers of students,¡± Dr Klinkum told the conference. ¡°This is not about immoral students. This is about varied values.¡±

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University of Melbourne law professor Jeannie Paterson said the protagonist in the American legal drama?Suits?was a ¡°hero¡± to her students because he sat the law school admission test for other people. ¡°He¡¯s kind of an underdog making good and helping other underdogs.¡±

She said a ¡°hero exam taker¡± could be considered ¡°appropriate¡± in a sector marked by its ¡°very transactional monetary relationship¡± with students. ¡°It¡¯s a transaction. It¡¯s leading to a job. This is the way to get it done.¡±

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Professor Paterson said universities faced a challenge championing values that students deemed irrelevant ¡°to what they¡¯re going to experience in the open world¡±. For example, her students struggled to understand the collusion policy barring them from talking with each other about their assignments.

¡°They will say, ¡®This is not relevant to the way I experience the world. I¡¯m constantly on social media with my peers and colleagues, interacting and collaborating.¡¯ We need to understand the perspective of the students, not just the values that we may think are self-evident.¡±

Helen Gniel, director of Teqsa¡¯s Higher Education Integrity Unit, said universities needed to work harder to stem demand for contract cheating services. ¡°Institutions aren¡¯t consistently¡­doing the hard conversations with the students ¨C catching them close to when they¡¯ve committed the offence, and having what should initially be an educative conversation,¡± she said.

¡°Students are allowed to make mistakes, but unless we¡¯re catching them and educating them, they won¡¯t necessarily recognise that it was a mistake. And those will become entrenched behaviours.¡±

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Maire?ad Boland, head of academic integrity regulation at Quality and Qualifications Ireland, said contract cheating companies were targeting students on social media. ¡°That¡¯s right across the breadth of platforms ¨C Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok. Awareness-raising and education is really important so that students are aware of the dangers of engaging with these bad actors.¡±

Professor Paterson said students were being targeted when they were most ¡°vulnerable¡± ¨C in their bedrooms late at night, as they struggled with assignments. ¡°Who¡¯s in touch with them? Not the university, but social media and the chat group and the Whirlpool forum or the Snapchat discussion group,¡± she said.

¡°If we want to understand the triggers¡­we really need to look at social media. [Students¡¯] relationships on social media are probably closer than the relationships with the university. That¡¯s not about the university; that¡¯s about social media.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com