Saturday, December 04, 2010

Cheating in education

A mercenary academic writes essays for students. It's an interesting story, though since the author is essentially a con man I don't have a lot of confidence in the details.

I was impressed by how much the students pay for their essays. For many of these people that's a lot of money.

I was also impressed by the blackmail potential. These students are putting a lot of trust in a shady character. "Ed Dante" knows their names, and has proof of services delivered. If I were paying him, I'd use a pseudonym.

Otherwise, it doesn't seem like a terribly worrisome problem, there are many other ways to evaluate students that are less amenable to fraud. If teachers don't use them, it may be that the fraud works for them too.

1 comment:

dloye said...

Retired math teacher in the higher ed slog. I'm appalled still at the number of "educators" who take the easy path of turning a blind eye to academic dishonesty. It's a scandal among others. I'm not going to enjoy watching the education bubble burst... but there's an implosion ahead.