‘Laws needed to deal with paid assignment writers’
“When I approach students, they tell me they did not buy it, but asked their brother or friend to do it for them, but I do not always believe them,” added Al Badi. “You cannot accuse students of contract cheating if you don’t really know if it is their work, unless there are policies against that. Thank God, I have only ever come across a few cases of this kind of cheating, but it exists. I think we need laws to deal with those who offer these types of services because such business should not be in Oman”
Mohammed Yassen, Director of e-learning at Majan University College, explained that contract cheating goes against the personal and academic integrity that needs to be part of any assignment a student undertakes.
Crucial part
“Academic integrity is a crucial part of any higher education,” he said. “We need to tell people that this is wrong and there is no value in getting your degree through this sort of approach. If you are a graduate, and you cheat your way to your degree then you will not be employed anywhere. Firstly, you must know that contract cheating is an offence, and will do you no good. Secondly, if you are approached by such people, you should not engage with them. Report them to your college and academic advisor and block their accounts.”
Yassen added, “There are different kind of penalties, depending on the circumstances, but you could fail that assignment or that subject if you repeat the offence. These kinds of activities are regarded as academic offences, and they could get you expelled from your college, depending on the severity”
Easy payment plans
One website also offered easy payment plans for students all over the world, as a method of encouraging repeat business. This website charged a rate of $8.95 per page (about OMR3.5 per page), with services including 24-hour support, free references, unlimited revisions, VIP support, access to the top 10 writers the service employed, and an editing proofread. It also promised delivery of the assignment in five days.
The standard service – priced at $6.95 (about OMR2.7) per page, offered the same perks, but with guaranteed delivery in a week’s time. More expensive services offered guaranteed delivery in three days ($10.95, about OMR4.25 per page) and even in 24 hours’ time ($15.95, about OMR6 per page).
The site also came with bundle offers, such as providing students with free assignment titles, a free table of contents, and a free bibliography.
Tiered services
Another site offered tiered services for Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate students, with pricing based on the subject, the urgency, the formatting, the number of sources and the subject matter. A 10-page assignment would set Bachelor’s student back $167.64 (about OMR65), while a Master’s student would have to pay $186.26 (about OMR72) and a Doctoral candidate would need to shell out $242.14 (about OMR93), assuming the assignment was due in one or two months, with the price steadily increasing as the time limit decreased.
Similar services were available on social media, where they encourage students to reach out to them via direct messages, often accompanied by catchy marketing slogans that persuaded students to contact them, with phrases such as ‘College got me feeling guilty when I am breathing because I could be doing homework’ and ‘Don’t allow assignments to take a toll on you’, in addition to providing special rates on public holidays.
However, one student Times of Oman spoke to said, “I regret it and would do things differently now. At the time, I was tempted when doing group assignments. A lot of the girls I was with would be busy with work or children and pile all the workload on me. It was too much so I’d ask for help and pay someone else to do it.”
Nowhere to run
Another student added, “Many of the friends I used to study with never bothered writing the assignments themselves. They would just pay someone to do the work for them, and then they would buy the engineering models for these assignments from e-commerce sites like eBay, when we were supposed to do the work ourselves.
“The professors knew who they were and of course some were caught,” added the student. “These are experienced people, and they know a student’s work when they see it. Either way, whether or not your professor catches you, sooner or later, when you don’t know the things you are supposed to know at work because you took shortcuts, then you will be exposed and you will have nowhere to run.”
Times of Oman also spoke to professional academic writers to find out why they decided to take up such assignments.
One contract writer said, “I have been doing this for more than seven years, and I charge OMR25 for every 2000 words. I can write anything you want. I need you to tell me exactly which college you’re with, what the professor wants, and what you want in addition.”
Another added, “Some people are too scared to use these services electronically. They prefer not to have the other person’s email, so they agree to meet at a certain place and then the student receives the assignment by hand.”