Edinburgh University invests £865,000 in online tutoring service that allegedly helps students CHEAT

Edinburgh University invests £865,000 in notorious online tutoring service that allegedly helps students CHEAT on remote exams by asking online experts question during the test

  • Figures from institution last year show they invested in £11.60-a-month platform 
  • Chegg allows students to send photos of homework to experts who help online 
  • Many believe linked to cheating as students can upload photos of tests at home

The University of Edinburgh has invested £865,00 in a notorious online tutoring service that allegedly helps students cheat during exams.

Figures from the institution’s annual investments for the last year show that the sum was invested into homework help service Chegg Inc.

The £11.60-a-month platform has been accused of enabling users to cheat on remote exams by posing questions to its online experts while they are taking tests. 

The University of Edinburgh has invested £865,00 in a notorious online tutoring service that allegedly helps students cheat during exams (Edinburgh University Old College, pictured) 

Details of the investment were posted online via a student Facebook group on October 31. 

The platform works by enabling users to send photos of their homework to experts who can provide help online. 

However, many believe it could be linked to a cheating scandal, as students taking tests at home can upload the exams and gain answers from online tutors in real time.

The University of Edinburgh have been approached for comment by the Mailonline. 

Facebook group Edifess wrote: ‘The University of Edinburgh has invested close to £850k in Chegg.com, a website where students can pay tutors to get answers for coursework and exams.’

The decision has been met with disapproval by social media users. 

One user said: ‘Please advise on whether this is a worthy addition to the University of Edinburgh investment portfolio.’

A Chegg spokesperson said: ‘All our services, including textbook rentals, online tutoring and revision aids, are designed to support the learning process and have been an invaluable resource to students, especially during the pandemic. 

‘We are deeply committed to academic integrity. The vast majority of students who use our platform are honest and here to learn. 

The company added: ‘However, we take extremely seriously any attempts to cheat by a tiny fraction of users.’

The platform works by enabling users to send photos of their homework to experts who can provide help online (Chegg website, pictured)

The platform works by enabling users to send photos of their homework to experts who can provide help online (Chegg website, pictured) 

‘We put huge effort and resources into preventing abuse of our platform, and we also cooperate fully with official university investigations into allegations of cheating. 

‘We continue to proactively work with institutions to support their efforts, including how to better educate students and faculty on these important issues.’​​

In April, the University of Boston investigated whether students cheated in chemistry and physics exams.

The university was trying to determine if students have used tutoring service Chegg, and other online resources, to see if they can get test answers while taking them. 

after academics began to suspect their students were using it to cheat during psychics and chemistry exams.  

In spite of this, £864,760 was invested into the service by the university through its investment management company, Baillie Gifford.  

According to the Washington Post, more than 200 of the 800 students in a statistics class were referred for disciplinary action.

They had used the ‘tutor-provided solutions’ to exam questions from Chegg at North Carolina State University.  

In 2019, Chegg Inc’s yearly report said it had 5.7 million paying customers and had managed to increase its service subscribers to a record 3.9 million.

This is an almost 30 per cent increase from 2018. 

The £11.60-a-month platform has been accused of enabling users to cheat on remote exams by posing questions to its online experts while they are taking tests (stock image used)

The £11.60-a-month platform has been accused of enabling users to cheat on remote exams by posing questions to its online experts while they are taking tests (stock image used)