Nursing students are cheating. A multitude of online essay writing services and writers have sprung up to support students in gaining nursing qualifications. These slides show the essay mills and contract cheating services that are ghostwriting essays and assignments for students. Nursing cheating is an area of growing concern within academia. A full video training expanding upon these slides is available at https://youtu.be/fbgOU2-A95o. A blog post discussion can be joined at http://thomaslancaster.co.uk/blog/examining-the-ease-of-buying-nursing-essays-online-through-essay-mills-and-contract-cheating-sites.

1. 1#contractcheating
Examining The Ease Of Buying
Nursing Essays Online Through
Essay Mills And Contract Cheating
Sites
Dr. Thomas Lancaster
Birmingham City University

2. 2#contractcheating
Background

3. 3#contractcheating
Dr. Thomas Lancaster
Senior Lecturer in Computing at
Birmingham City University
Active researcher in plagiarism and
contract cheating since 2000
Completed PhD in plagiarism
detection
Recognised by the Higher Education
Academy as a Senior Fellow
http://thomaslancaster.co.uk

4. 4#contractcheating
Academic Colleagues
“Detective” Robert Clarke Corinne Hersey Professor Fintan Culwin
http://myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/~fintanhttps://uk.linkedin.com/pub/robert-
clarke/16/12a/967
https://ca.linkedin.com/pub/corinne-
hersey/10/579/797

5. 5#contractcheating
Training Objectives
Show the sources that students are using to buy
essays
Pre-written nursing essays
Bespoke original nursing essays (contract cheating)
Consider the wider issues that around cheating
in nursing assignments
Why and how are students doing this?
What are the implications for “fitness for practice”

6. 6#contractcheating
Guiding Question
"Would you want to be treated by a
nurse who's cheated on their
assignment?”
Robert Clarke
BBC News
“When essays for sale become contract cheating”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20298237

7. 7#contractcheating
Essay Mills Used In Nursing

8. 8#contractcheating
“Buy Essay” search
Google Search

9. 9#contractcheating
First site on a UK domain focusing on nursing essays

10. 10#contractcheating
Second UK site – although note the “Americanisms”

11. 11#contractcheating
“CENTER”
Many essay mills rebrand themselves in multiple ways

12. 12#contractcheating
Selling Points

13. 13#contractcheating
Original Work!
Student will not be caught through Turnitin

14. 14#contractcheating
Third site on a UK domain focusing on nursing essays

15. 15#contractcheating
More marketing – with valid testimonials?

16. 16#contractcheating
Buying Nursing Essays on
Ebay

17. 17#contractcheating
“Nursing Essays” search
Ebay Search

18. 18#contractcheating

19. 19#contractcheating
First Example From Ebay

20. 20#contractcheating
Details About The Essay

21. 21#contractcheating
Warning!
This doesn’t say anything about handing this in!

22. 22#contractcheating
Lots Of Good Feedback
This has been sold multiple times – so hopefully will be in Turnitin

23. 23#contractcheating
Second Example From Ebay

24. 24#contractcheating
Third Example From Ebay – Are Ethics Important?

25. 25#contractcheating
Final Example From Ebay – Work With A Writer

26. 26#contractcheating

27. 27#contractcheating
Cheating Enabled Through
Other Sites

28. 28#contractcheating
Connecting Through Gumtree Classifieds

29. 29#contractcheating
Advertise and use a bidding process on Freelancer.com

30. 30#contractcheating
15 bids (so far) to complete
the work
Bids from 16 euros to 97
euros
Bids including UK and US
workers, even a “Doctor”

31. 31#contractcheating
Social Media
Twitter Search

32. 32#contractcheating
Not all attempts at enabling cheating are successful

33. 33#contractcheating
Further Resources

34. 34#contractcheating
For More Information
Thomas Lancaster
Email: thomas.lancaster@bcu.ac.uk
Website: http://thomaslancaster.co.uk
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/thomaslancaster
Twitter: @DrLancaster
General Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_cheating
http://contractcheating.com
Slides Available At:
http://www.slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster

35. 35#contractcheating
Speaking Opportunities
Available for keynote presentations, research seminars, British
Computer Society talks, teaching and learning festivals and
practitioner training.
Suggested topics include:
Contract cheating
Plagiarism prevention and detection
Examination cheating and misconduct
Cheating within medicine, nursing and health education
Social media use and student employability

36. 36#contractcheating
Further Research Presentation
“An Exploration of Contract Cheating and
Academic Misconduct Within Health Education”
Dr. Thomas Lancaster and Robert Clarke
Pedagogies, Practitioners and Identities in Education Conference
Birmingham City University
Monday, 13 July 2015
https://bcued2015.eventbrite.co.uk