LAUSR

Drawing on a survey of over 4000 students and 1300 faculty members at the University of Maryland Global Campus, we find evidence for a reconceptualization of the use of commercialized websites offering access to “tutors” or “study help” as a type of collaborative cheating. Past studies have examined this behavior as an extension of contract cheating, but we find that students perceive the use of these sites very differently than they perceive contract cheating behaviors. In this paper we will discuss how “tutor” or “study helper” websites combine the phenomena of collaborative cheating with internet-driven shifts in cultural and social perceptions to create a new type of cheating behavior that is viewed differently by students and faculty.