Australia¡¯s higher education regulator has made major progress in its war against essay mills, shutting down dozens of alleged academic cheating websites after negotiating a cooperative arrangement with the communication industry¡¯s professional association.

The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa) said it had blocked Australian access to 40 websites which were collectively attracting almost half a million visits every month.

While Teqsa monitors almost 600 suspect websites, it said the 40 it has targeted were easily the biggest and commanded around two-thirds of the traffic. ¡°Blocking these websites will seriously disrupt the operations of the criminals behind them,¡± said federal education minister Jason Clare.

The move represents a major escalation of Teqsa compliance action under anti-cheating legislation introduced in 2020. Last October the agency obtained a federal court order requiring Australian telecommunications companies to?block access to two websites?thought to be operated by an Indian syndicate.

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This time, Teqsa has been able to jam 20 times as many websites without any need for court action thanks to new ¡°protocols¡± negotiated with Australia¡¯s major internet service providers (ISPs) through their?representative association.

Helen Gniel, director of Teqsa¡¯s Higher Education Integrity Unit, said the 2021 experience had served as a test case by demonstrating ¡°what sort of evidence would satisfy a court¡±.

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Under the protocols, which were finalised in June, Teqsa must demonstrate that the websites are in breach of its cheating laws. This entitles it to make ¡°lawful requests¡± to ISPs to ¡°disrupt access¡±, a spokesman said.

The approach relies on Section 313 of Australia¡¯s Telecommunications Act as well as anti-cheating provisions under the Teqsa Act. ¡°Blocking these sites all at once will make an impact on the business models,¡± Dr Gniel said.

¡°It¡¯s not a one-off request. We¡¯ve built these relationships with the communications industry so that we can be much more nimble. We don¡¯t need to have the delays of going through the court system. We can block them very quickly.¡±

She predicted that Teqsa would take similar action several times a year, typically during peak assessment periods. The agency also had the capability to thwart cheating websites that reopened with new web addresses ¨C a common practice that leads commentators to liken the battle against essay mills to ¡°whack-a-mole¡±.

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¡°The web traffic analytics¡­mean that we can identify where traffic is moving to,¡± Dr Gniel said. ¡°If we see a new site pop up that suddenly has all the traffic, that would go to the top of the list.¡±

Students who try to access the blocked sites are automatically redirected to a Teqsa page advising them how to protect themselves from cheating services and the risk of blackmail.

¡°You¡¯re getting students right at the moment when they¡¯re trying to interact with the service,¡± Dr Gniel said. ¡°It¡¯s much more targeted than general communications to students.¡±

She said Teqsa had separately negotiated with prominent social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, to remove advertisements for commercial cheating services.

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com