Contract cheating: an increasing challenge for global academic community arising from COVID-19

In short

The pandemic move to online assessment gave contract cheating more openings, the authors report, from $50 COVID-19 discounts to paid tutors sitting online exams, and they call for action beyond single universities.

What it looked at

An investigation of the scope and scale of contract cheating and related integrity problems during the sudden move to online assessment under COVID-19, including offers aimed at online exams.

What it means for teaching

Points to pandemic-era offers aimed at online exams, as the authors report them, which may be worth knowing when planning remote assessment.

Limits

How the investigation was carried out and what sample it used are not described, so the reported scale cannot be checked.

Cited 106 times by other papers, as counted by OpenAlex in November 2026. A count measures attention, not quality.