The Culture of Digital Academic Commissions: An Exploratory Research

Abstract

Academic integrity is one of the transmitted values in the education process. However, due to the impact of unstoppable growing technology, accompanied by the effect of COVID19 pandemic to education processes, digital paid academic services became popular among students. This study aimed to explore the culture of paid digital academic services using the principles of covert observation utilizing the cyberethnographic design of qualitative research. The culture of paid academic services in Facebook groups were subjected to this study by analyzing the posts in the group pages. The observations are the following: (1) Academic servants are from different spectrum of educational qualifications, (2) services offered vary, (3) requests of potential clients are (a) to prepare common school requirements, (b) proxy to quizzes or performance tasks, (c) partial or full aids to their thesis, and (d) some notable observations. It was also observed that there are scamming schemes in the group. In the digital era, it is difficult to control paid academic services. Thus, ethically acceptable paid academic services must be clearly defined. Teachers and school administrators are advised to devise a policy on their classes/ school relative to pressing concerns of paid digital academic services. Keywords: Education, Academic Services, Covert Observation, Philippines