Fig. 1

Stakeholders in contract cheating. At the heart of the identified relationships is a student (green) whose arrangements with others are agreements governed primarily (but not exclusively) by the (civil) law of contract. Each of the parties involved may be affected, in some way, by the enacting of a legal approach to contract cheating. Not every party is involved in every incidence of contract cheating or would be affected by every type of legal approach. Red indicates stakeholders whose actions could be interpreted as a criminal offence under the new law proposed in Table 1. Government - Obviously many parties shown are also regulated by government but we show this specific relationship to indicate the perceived status of some contract cheating service providers as legitimate businesses operating in a commercial environment. University – in reality this could be any provider of education