Mass cheating is now part and parcel of the Australian universities with their dollar degrees for the largely Asian international student population. The prevalence of cheating, including using AI, has even been noted by Left wing sites: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jul/31/universities-australia-cheating-issues-ai-chatgpt?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other. As well, Australian universities are tossing out degrees to international students with little grasp of English, who are probably cheating their way through the degree: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jul/30/australian-universities-accused-of-awarding-degrees-to-students-with-no-grasp-of-basic-english.
Leith van Onselen over at the superb Macrobusiness.com.au, has been on this issue for some time. His latest piece, "International Student Cheating is Systemic," is unfortunately behind a paywall, and removepaywall.com, that searches for archived versions, did not retrieve it:
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2024/09/international-student-cheating-is-systemic/
Anyway, the main point is that international students at the University of Sydney are getting down and cheating big:
"Student visa holders are responsible for the large majority of costly student misconduct cases driven by creative cheating methods such as artificial intelligence, with one university investigating 10 times the number of international students than domestic students.
At the University of Sydney, 999 of 1259 cases (close to 80 per cent) of student misconduct received by the Student Affairs Unit in 2023 identified student visa holders as respondents. That's more than 10 times the number of cases for domestic students.
Most of these cases were related to academic misconduct, including online exam cheating detected through a proctoring service, and contract cheating due to the growth in AI cases, with the rest related to discrimination, bullying and harassment, according to Sydney University's 2023 Annual Report of Student Misconduct.
Separate 2023 academic integrity data released by the university revealed almost 100 per cent of exam misconduct referrals to the Student Affairs Unit involved international students – with 616 relating to undergraduate students and 265 to postgraduate students.
When it comes to online exam misconduct, students will often find someone to send them answers in real time. With essays, students submit work they did not complete, and are caught as a result of metadata in their Word document, or using a non-Australian IP address before submitting the work. The newest form of contract cheating relates to groups disguising themselves as local tutoring services and providing model answers to many students.
Sydney University's misconduct report noted "each of these cases requires significant time and effort to prepare notices of alleged misconduct and conduct investigations", and required the university to engage more casual case managers and investigators to adjust to the "unprecedented demand".
Experts who spoke to The Australian said the cost of a university engaging a solicitor to investigate individual academic misconduct cases could be between $1500 and $5000, depending on the complexity of the matter. Not all misconduct cases would proceed to this stage.
Herman Chan, principal advocate at Academic Appeal Specialist, which consults with students on academic appeals and disputes, said misconduct needed to be considered by the Department of Home Affairs in student visa applications.
Mr Chan said the recent policy on limiting the number of international students at Australia's elite universities "might push talented students to choose other countries, like the UK or the US, and leave Australia with lower-quality applicants".
"Low-quality students who can't catch up with the learning would tend to engage in misconduct in order to get a pass in a course," he said.
Mr Chan also said current laws did not do enough to stop contract cheating.
"There are ads everywhere in foreign social media from contract cheating providers. Many international students don't face real consequences when caught, they just leave the course or transfer to another university, which damages the academic environment," he said.
Over a five-year period, 2017-21, the average number of annual cases received by Sydney University's Student Affairs Unit was just 271, before increasing to 600 in 2022 with the move to online exams following the pandemic, and 1259 in 2023.
Queensland solicitor Kevin Park, who deals with academic integrity cases involving student visa holders, said students were getting "more creative with the way they are bending the rules" since the emergence of AI, which was contributing to a growing caseload.
Based on Sydney University's misconduct report, a quarter of cases took between two and six months to fully investigate.
Mr Park said he was aware of cases that took up to two years for a university to complete, which was "detrimental to the student", and that some students were not allowed a legal representative to appeal the matter.
Group of Eight deputy chief executive Matthew Brown said there was no doubt the government's plan to cap international student arrivals would "impact the decision-making of potential students", but Go8 universities have the "highest academic standards and entry requirements" and would continue to attract "the best and brightest" students.
University of Sydney deputy vice-chancellor Joanne Wright said commencing international students are reported at higher rates of academic misconduct as contract cheating services that target foreign students are becoming "increasingly brazen, aggressive and adaptable as they operate illegally".
"But this becomes more consistent with the reporting rates of our domestic students by their second year, highlighting the particular challenges many international students can face including around studying in a second or even third language, and adjusting to life and study in a different culture and country."
Higher education regulator TEQSA said it had blocked 79 illegal cheating websites this year, bringing the tally to 370 since mid-2022, as well as removing more than 850 social media advertisements and profiles."
This is an inevitable outcome of the international student supermarket and will exist as long as these students are the basis of the corrupt university system. We need to shut it all down, or else simply give out the degrees to international students, and not require them to do anything but pay. Why not? A system as corrupt as this one deserves this fate.
Australian politicians are on their knees, metaphorically, grovelling for Indian students. What a pitiful country. It makes one ashamed to be an Australian, whatever that means now.
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2024/09/victorian-premier-grovels-for-indian-students/