Risk of Contract Cheating: How can assessment design be an effective mitigation strategy?

How Smart Universities Are Minimising Contract Cheating With Assessment Design

Learning institutions treated cheating by absolute consensus as unethical, academic misconduct, never being argued to be right or wrong or conditional.

Authentic assessments by design were recurrently discussed as solutions to help to minimize instances of cheating.  Arguably such assessment methods are harder to contract out. Using a mixture of assessment methods has been recommended, both in controlled and ‘uncontrolled’ environments, written and oral, clinical, presentations and portfolios, as well as group and peer assessment.

Rethinking curriculum design and structure and process of delivery, are among suggested responses to curb or stop contract cheating. Changing assessment methods in the ways suggested in this report is also likely to have the benefit of improving assessment generally by focusing on what students can do, rather than what they write about.