A new revised definition of contract cheating

Contract cheating has appeared to become a global phenomenon, where students outsource their assignments to external third parties in the hope of obtaining better grades. The nature of contract cheating has changed over the years with current pervasive internet culture has made it much easier to cheat, hence there is a global rise in contract cheating activities. If unchecked, this poses a significant threat to the global higher education sector, where assessments are one of the established fundamental ways by which student learning is assessed. The purpose of this study is to critically review the existing Academic Integrity policies of Queensland, Australia public universities, as well as existing literature and document the contract cheating definition adopted. The review suggests a range of definition of contract cheating is available in the literature, with only three Queensland universities (out of seven in total) explicitly identifying and defining contract cheating in their policy documents. An evaluation of these definitions suggests that they miss out on important characteristics of cheating, such as cheating may occur without monetary transactions or even done by students’ own friends and family members. In view of the above, a revised definition is presented, and its merit discussed.