Assessing student programming - not agency RentACoding

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Assessing student programming - not agency
RentACoding

• Thomas Lancaster
• UCE Birmingham
• Disciplinary Commons June 9 2006

Material sourced from Eliminating the successor
to plagiarism? Identifying the usage of contract
cheating sites Robert Clarke Thomas
Lancaster JISC 2nd International Plagiarism
Conference, Newcastle, June 19 21 2006
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A portfolio
http//commons.thomaslancaster.co.uk
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Contract cheating process
student creates bid request
sellers bid to complete work for a competitive
price
student selects a seller - funds placed in escrow
bidder creates original work
student submits original work
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Why bother?

• Because students are using RentACoder.
• 12.3 of bid requests on RentACoder represent
  contract cheating.
• (3 week exhaustive check of RentACoder
  submissions i.e. 99 out of 803 bid requests).

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Extent of use

• 236 contract cheaters identified over a 2 month
  period.
• 19 (8.1) made only a single bid request.
• 122 (51.7) made between 2 and 7 bid requests.
• 6 (2.5) made 51 or more bid requests.

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Redesigning assessment

• Assess students when they can be monitored
• in lab assessments
• Ensure that students understand what they have
  produced.
• vivas
• in lab assessment
• Produce unique watermarked assignment
  specifications for every student.

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Only 1 identified this year
http//www.rentacoder.com
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Any questions?
Any answers?