Cheating on the rise during COVID, say researchers

Researchers in the United Kingdom are warning of an alarming rise in cheating in universities since the COVID pandemic hit, after detecting a tripling of requests to a major “homework help” website and an increase in the number of “essay mills” as courses and assessments have moved online, writes Sally Weale for The Guardian.

Researchers at Imperial College London studied requests to Chegg, a United States-based homework support website, and found students were using the site to ask for help with exam-style questions and receiving answers live, potentially within exam time limits, raising concerns about the credibility of online assessment.

The warning came as the former universities minister Chris Skidmore introduced a 10-minute rule bill in the Commons seeking to outlaw essay-writing services in the UK, saying they threaten to “damage academic integrity beyond repair”. “Each week that passes during the COVID pandemic, the situation is only growing worse,” Skidmore said, revealing that the number of such sites in the UK are proliferating, with 932 in operation, up from 881 in October.
Full report on The Guardian site