'Understanding how and why students use academic file-sharing and homework-help websites: implications for academic integrity' by
Christine Slade, Guy J Curtis and Sheona Thomson in (2024)
Higher Education Research and Development comments
In the past decade, extra-institutional file-sharing and homework-help websites have gone from being small-scale operations to large corporate businesses. File-sharing and homework-help websites threaten academic integrity when students use assessment work sourced from these sites as if it were their own. However, little is known about how students use these websites, what motivates students’ use, and whether students are aware of the risks of using these sites. In an international survey of 1000 students, nearly half had heard of, or used, file-sharing and homework-help websites, and 377 completed a longer follow-up survey. We also undertook qualitative analysis of social media posts related to file-sharing and homework-help websites. Students indicate that they used the websites to obtain material to study for and/or complete assessments, and they exchanged assessment and study materials for altruistic reasons as well as for personal benefit. Students were mostly aware of academic integrity risks in using the websites but were typically unaware of their own institutions’ position or policies regarding the use of these sites. It is recommended that higher education institutions develop policies and educate students regarding unaffiliated file-sharing and homework-help websites to promote academic integrity.
Contract cheating is the outsourcing of students’ educational assessment work, which they should personally complete, to third parties, often for payment (Bretag et al., 2019; Curtis et al., 2022a). Research into contract cheating has examined students’ use of ghostwriters, who complete bespoke assignments on demand (e.g., Clarke & Lancaster, 2006; Eaton et al., 2022; Newton, 2018). Yet Curtis et al. (2022c) found that it is more common for students to download, lightly edit, and then submit assessments written by other students that they obtain from file-sharing websites. Other recent research showed a nearly 200% increase in internet traffic to a homework-help website within the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (Lancaster & Cotarian, 2021). Yet, with rare exceptions (e.g., Rogerson, 2022, n2023), little attention has been paid to students’ use of file-sharing and homework-help websites, and the potential impact on academic integrity.
This paper reports on a research project that investigated how students use file-sharing and homework-help online services, and their motivation in undertaking these transactional practices. On these platforms, we know that students share examples of examination preparation notes and even completed assessment tasks, and use the ‘tutoring’ and ‘homework help’ functions to rapidly source solutions to assessments in progress, e.g., unproctored online quizzes (Rogerson, 2023; Rogerson & Basanta, 2016). Nonetheless, as the following review of the current literature reveals, there are numerous gaps in our knowledge of how students interact with and think about these services.
The ‘Buy, sell, trade’ business model
In general, academic file-sharing websites operate by allowing students to upload materials such as their notes and assessment items (essays, reports, tests), and, in return, they receive ‘unlocks’ that allow them to download a lesser number of files than they have uploaded (Eaton, 2021; Rogerson & Basanta, 2016). Alternatively, students can pay a subscription fee to access (or unlock) a certain number of items in the period of their subscription. Homework-help websites allow students to post questions and receive answers, and they may also provide access to answers that have already been provided to other students (Lancaster & Cotarian, 2021). Some websites provide both file-sharing and homework-help functions, while others just provide one. Thus, depending on the website, students may pay and/or upload materials to download files and/or get answers to questions.
The business model of file-sharing and homework-help websites is such that they can be used both legitimately as a study aid by students or potentially to cheat on higher education assessments (Eaton, 2021; Rogerson, 2022). Recent evidence suggests that over 1 in 10 Australian students submit work that was principally written by other students, which they obtained from file-sharing websites (Curtis et al., 2022c). In addition, the ability to rapidly get ‘expert’ answers to questions allows students to obtain third party written solutions to assessment items and submit these under their own name. Concerns about such use and promotion of homework-help websites were recently articulated by the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency in Australia because such actions would breach new laws against providing cheating services (Ross, 2023).
