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Feeling the pressure to pass the Ontario bar exam, a prospective lawyer looking for advice messaged someone on Facebook about his offer to share “resources.”
He was alarmed by the response.
“I can help you…if you’re interested,” read the post from a person who claims to work for the National Credentials Committee, a Canadian legal advisory group involved in law school admissions.
For about $1,000, the person wrote late last year, any “interested candidate” could get “disclosed questions and answers” on the bar exam, the final hurdle to becoming a lawyer in Ontario. The law student, who the Star agreed not to name due to fears it would affect his job search, concluded the message was a scam – and he wasn’t anyway. not interested in cheating.
Months later, he questioned whether the offer was related to the explosive announcement from the Law Society of Ontario this month that he had received information that “strongly indicates” that parts of the exam had, in fact, been leaked to potential Ontario lawyers, including some who may have obtained a license after cheating.
The LSO says an external investigation is underway but will not say whether police are involved.
Initially, the LSO canceled the March bar exam, affecting about 1,100 candidates who had completed years of study and internship with senior lawyers. Many have made great sacrifices to prepare for the exam, with some taking weeks off without pay, maximizing savings and arranging childcare and elder care to study. However, the LSO on Saturday announced new dates in April for “those who are eligible”.
Still in limbo are potentially hundreds of applicants who have already passed the test and were waiting for their licenses to take on new job offers.
The investigative team is also looking for evidence that some already licensed Ontario lawyers may have cheated on their tests, which were posted online due to the June 2020 pandemic; the survey only covers post-change testing. Saturday’s announcement said the postponed exams will be “on paper and in person in Toronto.”
The Star has contacted more than a dozen people who have been affected by the rulings, some with looming student loan repayments. “Livelihoods will be destroyed for innocent individuals,” said one, who was told his call to the bar had been postponed pending an assessment of the exam he had taken at the end of last year.
The Law Society has released no further details of the cheating investigation, other than to say the evidence points to the potential involvement of “third parties”.
This comes as no surprise to experts who study the global explosion of the “contract fraud” industry.
“It’s a very sophisticated industry that we conservatively estimate at $15 billion (US),” said Sarah Eaton, a faculty member at the University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education. She has conducted extensive research on the subject of academic integrity.
The ace-myhomework.com website, for example, invites students overwhelmed by the pressures of life to complete a specially designed order form, pay a fee, and receive a “personalized original paper” that can “reflect your style.” of writing”.
On essayshark.com, suggested topics include the health differences between vegans and meat eaters, the effects of radiation sickness in the Hiroshima bombing or, for more eclectic topics, why the hit themes of Netflix “Squid Game” are essential today.
The website bid4papers.com operates on an auction system: students are invited to post an essay or essay question, and watch “expert and talented academic” writers bid for the work. Bonus: a built-in plagiarism checker that will ensure that “your article is completely original with just one click”.
Each of these websites includes disclaimers. Acemyhomework says its content is “for support purposes ONLY. An appropriate reference should be used. EssayShark, advises, “we do not condone, encourage, or knowingly participate in plagiarism or any other act of fraud or academic dishonesty.” The fine print on the Bid4Papers website says “You may not put your name on any product”. (Neither website responded to the Star’s requests for comment.)
Such disavowals are “a sham,” said Eaton, who has edited a new book, “Academic Integrity in Canada: An Enduring and Essential Challenge.” Online services, “know the business they’re in. We know the business they’re in. They’re in the business of academic misconduct.”
In addition to essay-for-hire services, online operators are “preying on” students claiming to be selling insider information, such as exam questions and answers. They use social media, such as TikTok, Instagram and other “spaces, where the profs and people my age, the Gen Xers, we’re not there,” Eaton said.
Canadian institutions, including colleges and universities, have tried to play down contract fraud for fear it could damage their reputations, Eaton said. In contrast, the phenomenon is openly discussed in Australia after a major scandal in 2015 involving a ghostwriting service targeting international students.
Academic cheating services are also not illegal in Canada, although other countries have passed laws aimed at reducing academic infractions.
Eaton added, “In Canada, it’s almost embarrassing how little attention we pay to this.
Not that the practice has gone unnoticed.
Last year, Canada’s Better Business Bureau issued a warning that college and high school students who hire “tutors” to complete their in-class assignments could face extortion. When the student refuses to pay more for ‘additional research’, the tutor turns on him, sending ‘threatening emails or text messages claiming that he will contact your school and report you as a cheater’, warned the April 2021 BBM scam alert.
Eaton said cheating requires a “holistic” response that includes “having open and honest discussions with students about academic expectations and letting students know where they can access support.”
Cheating has increased in the global higher education sector during the pandemic, Amanda McKenzie of the Academic Integrity Council of Ontario wrote in an email.
Student cheating happens for a variety of reasons, including time, family, and peer pressure. Students may also be tempted to take shortcuts if they feel disconnected from the instructor or course content, are worried about getting high grades, or have mental health or financial issues. writes McKenzie, who is also director of quality assurance at the University. from the Waterloo Office of Academic Integrity.
While all of these factors existed before COVID, she wrote, “the pandemic added additional layers that impacted students, such as their physical well-being and concern about contracting the virus, the demands social distancing and isolation, and difficulties in working remotely through their course, etc.
Ironically, while academic cheating has increased during the pandemic, it has also been a boon for companies offering to tackle the problem.
In 2020, the Law Society of Ontario turned to two U.S. companies, Paradigm Testing and MonitorEDU, to help bring its licensing exams online.
Paradigm Testing, a small Minnesota company, offers online licensing exams to applicants on their laptop or desktop computer through a “secure browser-based platform that prevents the computer from accessing anything but the licensing exam,” according to the LSO website.
Tennessee-based MonitorEDU, co-founded a few years ago by two men who call themselves the “godfathers of surveillance,” provides live monitors, called proctors, who verify candidates’ identities and watch them as they do the test using audio and video broadcast.
The use of services such as electronic monitoring has been controversial due to concerns about privacy and surveillance. There are also red flags about the limitations of the technology due, in part, to the fact that facial recognition tends to perform poorly on people of color.
Eaton is not yet convinced of the effectiveness.
“Institutions that have looked to online monitoring software as a solution to misconduct, when there are many other things they should also be looking at,” she said. “We have a lot of sales pitches. We don’t have a lot of data.
