Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials in Higher Education: 5 (Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts)

This book addresses an important topic in higher education: credential fraud. This includes, but is not limited to, fake degrees, diploma mills, admissions fraud, and cheating on standardized admissions tests. The book directly addresses fake and fraudulent credentials in higher education. It explores transcript tampering and fraud in varsity athletics and discusses lazy practices in the higher education hiring processes that open the door for professors without proper credentials to get jobs in post-secondary institutions. 

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is an associate professor at the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada. She has received research awards of excellence for her scholarship on academic integrity from the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE) (2020) and the European Network for Academic Integrity (ENAI) (2022). Dr. Eaton has written and presented extensively on academic integrity and ethics in higher education and is regularly invited as a media guest to talk about academic misconduct. Dr. Eaton is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal for Educational Integrity. Her books include Plagiarism in Higher Education: Tackling Tough Topics in Academic Integrity, Academic Integrity in Canada: An Enduring and Essential Challenge (Eaton & Christensen Hughes, eds.), and Contract Cheating in Higher Education: Global Perspectives on Theory, Practice, and Policy (Eaton, Curtis, Stoesz, Clare, Rundle, & Seeland, eds.) and Ethics and Integrity in Teacher Education (Eaton & Khan, eds.).

Jamie Carmichael is the Associate Registrar of Scheduling and Systems at Carleton University. She is responsible for the construction of the university timetable, scheduling and administration of examinations, the operation of two examination centres for students with disabilities, a university-wide space management system, and other core student administrative systems. Since 2009, she has received ten service excellence nominations for her work that ranges from information technology projects, team acknowledgment to innovation.

Carmichael’s research lies at the intersection of academic integrity and machine learning, with graduate education in Applied Science in Technology Information Management (Engineering). She has presented or co-presented at national and international conferences and is often called up on by specialized groups in higher education to present on her work.

Helen Pethrick, MA, is a researcher and educator in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Research areas include academic integrity in higher education, post-secondary student mental health and well-being, and peer mentorship in educational settings.