In its April ASQA IQ newsletter, ASQA has focussed on the risks of academic cheating, particularly contract cheating, which they explain are services which “enable a student to commission a third party to complete their assessment work and then submit it as their own.”
They go on to warn that contract cheating brings academic integrity risks and risks to students themselves because:
“students who use contract cheating services… may be exposing themselves to criminals. Operators of contract cheating services often request students’ personal details which could potentially open students up to the risk of blackmail, identity theft, extortion or cyber-attacks Research shows that the operators of cheating services may threaten to inform prospective employers about a student’s cheating unless the student pays the operator a large sum of money.”
Of further importance to VET providers is ASQA’s identification of evidence that contract cheating services are evolving and these businesses may now be “offering to mark student assessments on behalf of educators.”
The advice from ASQA includes two sets of tips and a set of recommendations for providers on how to identify where academic cheating sites might be being used by your students.
The newsletter also includes advice on the appropriate use of AI in VET including to help support student learning, to “optimise the delivery of theoretical components of courses and automate the administrative tasks.”
ASQA also notes that in a number of industries workers are now using AI in the workplace and these practices will need to be incorporated by providers into what they teach because training packages are “pre-generative AI”.
They go on to state that it is therefore the provider’s responsibility:
“to undertake effective industry consultation to ensure that your training and assessment gives graduates industry-relevant skills and knowledge and the ability to apply these in the workplace.”
The newsletter article ends with advice on how to ensure assessment integrity in the age of AI.
