In the media

Education agencies across the globe are joining forces to fight the rise of commercial cheating services that target students worldwide. The newly formed Global Academic Integrity Network (GAIN) will share experiences and resources to help jurisdictions develop legislation, regulatory approaches and frameworks that penalise facilitating and advertising of cheating services. It was founded by Quality and Qualifications Ireland and Australia’s Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency and launched in Dublin last October.

Researchers globally have reported that since the pandemic, there is growing concern about cheating and the risk it poses to the integrity of higher education. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency recently used its powers to block academic cheating websites for the first time. The Agency blocked 40 websites that were visited about 450,000 times a month.

To prevent the leakage of question papers and other malpractices, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) has tightened the security of the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination. Ten cases of breaches of WAEC rules were identified, including people linked to rogue websites, while the suspects in three cases were convicted and fined by the court. According to the head of Public Affairs of WAECA, schools accused of malpractice will be monitored and confidential material and examination papers will be stored.

TEQSA’s Higher Education Integrity Unit has updated a database of 2,333 suspected commercial academic cheating service websites, including 579 sites specifically targeting students at Australian Higher Education institutions. This intelligence sharing will enable providers to block access to these websites from their institutional networks and is part of TEQSA’s ongoing partnership with the Higher Education sector to strengthen cultures of academic integrity.

100,000 pupils have been missing from school rolls during the past two years. The Government has announced that a national register would be introduced to assess how many pupils were not in school across the country. The Schools White Paper announced that laws would be introduced to modernise how attendance is recorded, with a “national data solution” used to track attendance and provide a “safety net” for vulnerable pupils at risk of disappearing from school rolls.

To identify students accurately and easily detect any potential impersonator, an expert from Cairo’s National Research Centre called on African universities to introduce biometric systems based on fingerprints and to install scanning systems at entrance gates, examination halls and lecture rooms. An Egyptian soccer player has been recently impersonated during the mid-year exam at a private higher education institution in Shabraman.

The Office for Students (OfS) has published a circular detailing minimum acceptable student outcomes which set thresholds for drop-out rates, course completion and graduate employment that universities and colleges will need to meet to avoid further investigation. According to Ofs, over 60,000 students on full-time undergraduate courses are currently enrolled at institutions in England that could be sanctioned for low quality and poor value for money.

13 staff members at the Ministry of Education have been dismissed in the Zambezi region after they were found guilty of claiming N$9 million in cash bonuses and additional payments. In order to improve payroll administration and identify any irregularity on the Ministry's payroll, a nationwide annual verification exercise is carried out.

Curtin University implicated in unethical research using facial recognition technology to identify Uyghur and Tibetan minorities has lobbied unsuccessfully for the publishers to retract it on several occasions. An internal review of research by a resigned professor at the university found that he breached several ethical codes, including failing to obtain informed consent and approval. The article remains online although Curtin University deputy vice-chancellor has urged the publisher to remove all references to the university.

A research team from the Canadian University of Dubai has identified a new approach to combating academic integrity using machine learning techniques. The new method applies an algorithm to identify cases of cheating through post-exam analysis of student grades from quizzes, midterm exams, and the final exam of an entire class. This technique can complement the work of commercial plagiarism detection software and provide a deterrent and non-intrusive alternative to remotely proctored exams.