Midland students are outsourcing their coursework via the internet to low cost freelancers in countries like Romania, India and China under a growing phenomenon known as “contract cheating”.
Under the practice, students post work they want completing on websites normally used by businesses contracting out work to tender.
Suppliers in foreign countries that have a weaker currency rate offer cut price bids to complete the assignment which - unlike other forms of cheating such as plagiarism - is difficult to detect.
Research by Dr Thomas Lancaster and Robert Clarke at Birmingham City University’s department of computing has found a significant growth in contract cheating.
