IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joaced/v34y2016icp59-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ghostwriters in the cloud

Author

Listed:
  • Fisher, Elizabeth
  • McLeod, Alexander J.
  • Savage, Arline
  • Simkin, Mark G.

Abstract

Ghostwriters are “hired guns” who complete online tests, write term papers, or even take entire courses on behalf of others. Several surrogate indicators suggest that the market for ghostwriting is growing. This paper explores the antecedents, ethical considerations, and legal issues involved with ghostwriting, and discusses the authentication techniques, identity-management methodologies, and proctoring options that can help control ghostwriting activities. It also describes a pilot study that the authors conducted of a promising authentication system. Both institutions of higher learning and accounting educators can adopt policies and procedures to deal with ghostwriters, and we include a list of best practices for this problem.

Suggested Citation

  • Fisher, Elizabeth & McLeod, Alexander J. & Savage, Arline & Simkin, Mark G., 2016. "Ghostwriters in the cloud," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 59-71.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joaced:v:34:y:2016:i:c:p:59-71
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jaccedu.2015.11.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0748575115000688
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jaccedu.2015.11.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blaise Cronin, 2015. "The writing on the wall," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(5), pages 873-875, May.
    2. Oskar R. Harmon & James Lambrinos, 2008. "Are Online Exams an Invitation to Cheat?," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 116-125, April.
    3. Kenneth J. Smith & Malcolm Smith, 2012. "Academic Dishonesty—Cheating Behaviour and Other Forms of Inappropriate Conduct," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 211-213, June.
    4. Cam Caldwell, 2010. "A Ten-Step Model for Academic Integrity: A Positive Approach for Business Schools," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 92(1), pages 1-13, March.
    5. Umesh Sharma & Martin Kelly, 2015. "The changing role of accounting education and management control systems in the age of sustainability," International Journal of Critical Accounting, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 7(3), pages 289-303.
    6. Singh, Anil & Mangalaraj, George & Taneja, Aakash, 2011. "An approach to detecting plagiarism in spreadsheet assignments: A digital answer to digital cheating," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 142-152.
    7. Mark Simkin & Alexander McLeod, 2010. "Why Do College Students Cheat?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 94(3), pages 441-453, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rebele, James E. & St. Pierre, E. Kent, 2019. "A commentary on learning objectives for accounting education programs: The importance of soft skills and technical knowledge," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 71-79.
    2. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M. & Rebele, James E., 2017. "Accounting education literature review (2016)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-31.
    3. Everaert, Patricia & Safari, Maryam, 2021. "Digital self-contained module to assist a writing task on evaluating the financial, social, and environmental performance of a company: Teaching note," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joanne Jones & Gary Spraakman, 2011. "A Case of Academic Misconduct: Does Self‐Interest Rule?," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(1), pages 1-22, March.
    2. Riffat Ara Zannat Tama & Md Mahmudul Hoque & Ying Liu & Mohammad Jahangir Alam & Mark Yu, 2023. "An Application of Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to Examining Farmers’ Behavioral Attitude and Intention towards Conservation Agriculture in Bangladesh," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-22, February.
    3. Winrow, Brian, 2016. "Do perceptions of the utility of ethics affect academic cheating?," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-12.
    4. Jasper Brinkerink, 2023. "When Shooting for the Stars Becomes Aiming for Asterisks: P-Hacking in Family Business Research," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(2), pages 304-343, March.
    5. Yao-Chung Cheng & Fang-Chih Hung & Hung-Ming Hsu, 2021. "The Relationship between Academic Dishonesty, Ethical Attitude and Ethical Climate: The Evidence from Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-16, October.
    6. Catherine Cleophas & Christoph Hönnige & Frank Meisel & Philipp Meyer, 2023. "Who’s Cheating? Mining Patterns of Collusion from Text and Events in Online Exams," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 84-94, January.
    7. Larry Floyd & Feng Xu & Ryan Atkins & Cam Caldwell, 2013. "Ethical Outcomes and Business Ethics: Toward Improving Business Ethics Education," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 117(4), pages 753-776, November.
    8. Evan Polman & Lyn M. Van Swol & Paul R. Hoban, 2020. "Harbingers of foul play: A field study of gain/loss frames and regulatory fit in the NFL," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 15(3), pages 353-370, May.
    9. Tracy Manly & Lori Leonard & Cynthia Riemenschneider, 2015. "Academic Integrity in the Information Age: Virtues of Respect and Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 579-590, March.
    10. Roberta Fida & Carlo Tramontano & Marinella Paciello & Valerio Ghezzi & Claudio Barbaranelli, 2018. "Understanding the Interplay Among Regulatory Self-Efficacy, Moral Disengagement, and Academic Cheating Behaviour During Vocational Education: A Three-Wave Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 725-740, December.
    11. Vazquez, Jose J. & Chiang, Eric P. & Sarmiento-Barbieri, Ignacio, 2021. "Can we stay one step ahead of cheaters? A field experiment in proctoring online open book exams," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    12. Jais Juraifa Bte & Asokumar Anusha, 2020. "Psychological Process, Social and Environmental Influence on Retirement Planning: Malaysian Energy Industry Perspective," Management & Marketing, Sciendo, vol. 15(2), pages 134-153, June.
    13. Madhubala Harji & Zalina Ismail & Thiba Chetty & Krishnaveni Letchumanan, 2017. "Technical and Non-Technical Programme Students’ Attitudes and Reasons for Plagiarism," English Language Teaching, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(11), pages 141-141, November.
    14. Sandra Scott, 2017. "From Plagiarism‐Plagued to Plagiarism‐Proof: Using Anonymized Case Assignments in Intermediate Accounting," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(4), pages 247-268, December.
    15. G. Venkat Raman & Swapnil Garg & Sneha Thapliyal, 2019. "Integrative Live Case: A Contemporary Business Ethics Pedagogy," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(4), pages 1009-1032, April.
    16. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M. & Watson, Stephanie F., 2013. "Accounting education literature review (2010–2012)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 107-161.
    17. Chase Thiel & Zhanna Bagdasarov & Lauren Harkrider & James Johnson & Michael Mumford, 2012. "Leader Ethical Decision-Making in Organizations: Strategies for Sensemaking," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 107(1), pages 49-64, April.
    18. Cheryl J. Wachenheim, 2009. "Final Exam Scores in Introductory Economics Courses: Effect of Course Delivery Method and Proctoring," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 31(3), pages 640-652.
    19. Wuthisatian, Rattaphon, 2020. "Student exam performance in different proctored environments: Evidence from an online economics course," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    20. Michał Krawczyk, 2012. "Sex, morals and exam cheating," Working Papers 2012-09, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joaced:v:34:y:2016:i:c:p:59-71. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-accounting-education .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.