Academic integrity and contract cheating policy analysis of colleges in Ontario, Canada

In short

How clearly do college policies address contract cheating? The authors analysed written policies from Ontario colleges and report that direct language on contract cheating was largely missing and the underlying principles were poorly defined.

What it looked at

A document analysis of 28 documents from 22 publicly funded colleges in Ontario, Canada, mostly policies and procedures. The authors looked at document type, policy language, principles, access, approach, responsibility, detail and support.

What it means for teaching

Checking whether a policy names contract cheating and defines its principles may be worthwhile, going by one province's colleges.

Limits

It reads published documents only, so it says little about how policies work in practice. It covers one province's colleges.

Cited 112 times by other papers, as counted by OpenAlex in November 2026. A count measures attention, not quality.