The Scholarship of Technology Enhanced Cheating

Abstract

The Scholarship of Technology Enhanced Learning, and the Scholarship of Learning and Teaching more broadly, tends to focus on positive stories of things that work (Dawson & Dawson, 2018). We have an interest in learning and want to share strategies we have found to be successful. A similar parallel can be drawn with the field of academic integrity, in that it too is a field with a focus on a positive thing: students’ capabilities and actions that demonstrate they can and do act in the way we want them to.

Delving into the negative is unpleasant. It can require an adversarial mindset (Dawson, 2021), similar to the type used in cybersecurity (Craigen et al., 2014). Scholars of cheating can be portrayed by the media as undercover sleuths (e.g. Cook, 2018). On the flipside, those who question the technologies used to detect or deter cheating can face legal action by vendors. In my own work I have had to step very carefully, having been warned that studies where I try to empirically check if anti-cheating technologies work may not be legal without the support of their vendors. Cheating and anti-cheating scholarship is a charged, risky place to be.

This presentation explores cheating and technology. Drawing on a recent synthesis of research from cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and game studies (Dawson, 2021), it discusses what the current state of cheating is, and where it is likely to be in the near future – as well as the types of scholarship that we need to address the problem of technology-enhanced cheating.

References

Cook, H. (2018, 13 November 2018). Academics go undercover to spot the telltale signs of a cheater. The Age. https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/academics-go-undercover-to-spot-the-telltale-signs-of-a-cheater-20181113-p50fng.html

Craigen, D., Diakun-Thibault, N., & Purse, R. (2014). Defining cybersecurity. Technology Innovation Management Review, 4(10), 13-21.

Dawson, P. (2021). Defending assessment security in a digital world: preventing e-cheating and supporting academic integrity in higher education. Routledge.

Dawson, P., & Dawson, S. L. (2018). Sharing successes and hiding failures: ‘reporting bias’ in learning and teaching research. Studies in Higher Education, 43(8), 1405-1416. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2016.1258052