Education as a Financial Transaction: Contract Employment and Contract Cheating

Abstract

Over the last decade, high-profile cases of academic misconduct have surfaced across Canada (Eaton, 2020a). I argue that it is systemic issues that contribute to their ubiquity: knowledge is seen as a commodity, transcripts and credentials as products, and students as consumers. As provincial governments in Ontario and Alberta introduce funding models tied to graduate earnings and employment (Anderson, 2020; Weingarten et al., 2019), education becomes a financial transaction and academic integrity is threatened. Credentials hold more value than the process of learning, and when students pay for credentials, it is more palatable to pay for grades. This is exacerbated by a supply and demand for academically dishonest practices. File sharing websites that facilitate cheating are ubiquitous; coursehero.com alone is worth over one billion dollars (Schubarth, 2020). Targeted advertisements for essay mills abound. Meanwhile, academia increasingly relies on the labour of sessionals (Shaker & Pasma, 2018), who tend to underestimate the scope of misconduct (Hudd et al., 2009) and are less likely to report infractions (Blau et al., 2018). Furthermore, those with graduate degrees are increasing (Wall et al., 2018) while stable academic jobs are fewer (Kezar, 2013). Academics faced with precarious employment often supplement income in what Kezar et al. (2019) refer to as the “gig academy”. They are well-positioned to meet the demand for ghost-written papers (Sivasubramaniam et al., 2016). Although many institutions have responded with well-articulated policies and procedures, when entrenched in a system that incentivises and facilitates dishonest practices, they are not lasting solutions to chronic problems.

Mapping the Contours

“…Many researchers argue that the disregard for academic integrity in higher education is a systemic issue steeped in neoliberalism (Crossman, 2022;Mahabeer & Pirtheepal, 2019). Crossman (2022) argues that while people are quick to point fingers at individual cheaters, "emerging and systemic issues in higher education and society as a whole have contributed to the ubiquity of academic misconduct and how it has shapeshifted in response to new pressures and technologies" (p. 218). That is, the expectation and desire to earn a postsecondary degree at any cost has driven students to engage in questionable behaviours that constitute academic misconduct.…”

Adjuncting for Life: The Gendered Experience of Adjunct Instructors in Ontario

“…As the resistance of institutions of higher learning to change entrenches, reformers have been issuing calls to action (Anthony et al, 2020;Schlaerth, 2022). In Canada, the literature is sparse; studies investigating adjuncts have been carried out in Alberta (Crossman, 2019), Ontario (Field et al, 2014), and Canada-wide (Foster & Birdsell Bauer, 2018).…”

“…Adjuncts experienced income insecurity, were unable to plan for their future, could not build relationships with students, for example, while supervising research projects, and could not put enough work into their own research projects (Foster & Birdsell Bauer, 2018). Crossman (2019) identified additional difficulties: limited advanced notice of course appointments; the unpredictable workload from one term to the next; having to work at multiple institutions or take on a non-academic job to survive financially; and exclusion from department committees, meetings, and events. In her review of the difficulties dealing with graduate plagiarism as an adjunct at an Albertan university, she also laid out the problems adjuncts had with such processes -opaque, weighty, time consuming, and stressful -in the absence of university support and guidance (Crossman, 2019).…”

“…The chance of being hired for a tenure-track position diminishes each year as new graduates compete with those still searching, and mature scholars seek other academic jobs. A large group of instructors with PhDs have now been underemployed for years, with no job security, low pay, limited to no benefits, little opportunity for advancement, and real difficulty building the research dossier required for full-time employment (Crossman, 2019;Field et al, 2014;Foster & Birdsell Bauer, 2018;Sadlier, 2021). Canadian information about this subset of university employees is limited but growing.…”

Conclusions and Future Directions for Academic Integrity in Canada

“…In this volume, contributors share empirical findings (see deMontigny, 2022; Garwood, 2022;Hamilton & Wolsky, 2022;McNeill, 2022;Packalen & Rowbotham, 2022;Peters et al, 2022;Rossi, 2022), as well as conceptual and other forms of scholarly expertise and insights (see Christensen Hughes & Eaton, 2022a, b;Crossman, 2022;Eaton & Christensen Hughes, 2022;Foxe et al, 2022;Hunter & Kier, 2022, Miron, 2022Teymouri et al, 2022, Watson Hamilton, 2022 and perspectives from leadership and professional practice (see Kenny & Eaton, 2022;Morrison & Zachariah, 2022;Morrow, 2022;Penaluna & Ross, 2022;Thacker & McKenzie, 2022). Of particular note are the chapters that broaden understanding of academic integrity beyond the questionable behaviours of students, to include that of faculty, administrators and the history and cultures of institutions of higher learning, as well as those that extend the dialogue around the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) (see Bens, 2022;Kenny & Eaton, 2022;Hamilton & Wolsky, 2022), signalling that academic integrity inquiry can fit within SoTL when the focus is on learning and teaching.…”