Plagiarism on the rise? : combating contract cheating in science courses

This paper is largely based on a paper presented at ACSME 2011 (O’Malley & Roberts, 2011). It describes a relatively new, but rapidly expanding, cause for concern for academics and administrators, that of students plagiarizing by using online auctions, a practice also known as “contract cheating”. The prevention and detection of such plagiarism in the context of science education presents particular difficulties. The paper suggests several innovative and possibly controversial methods to minimize the number of occurrences, ensuring that as few students cheat as possible, and describes various techniques to aid in the detection of those that do.