A Kenyan man more than 12,000 kilometres away from Toronto claims he has written hundreds of essays and assignments that have been submitted by Canadian university students over the last year.
It’s called “contract cheating” — where students have a third party complete their assignments on their behalf, often for a fee.
CityNews first reported on contract cheating last March, after dozens of posters advertising the website Ehomework.ca were spotted on University of Toronto’s St. George campus.
Using the website, CityNews requested an essay on social problems in the criminal justice system and asked that it be written within 12 hours. For a payment of $165 the completed essay was received within the promised time.
Earlier this month, CityNews received an email from a man in Kenya who claims he’s the one who wrote the paper. He says he was paid only $18 of the $165.
“I don’t think if you expected that your essay could be written by someone in Kenya who has no knowledge in criminal justice system”, read the email from a man who asked to be called Joseph in an effort to protect his identity.
Joseph says he has written hundreds of assignments for at least 50 students over the last year. He sent us logins for students from schools including University of Toronto, York, University of Ottawa and Simon Fraser.
He also claims he was offered help immigrating to Canada if he continued to work for a reduced fee for at least one year.
“The promise was that I work for him, then he can send me a formal job offer for me to immigrate to Canada. He was to withheld part of salary to facilitate my immigration process.”
Joseph, who says he holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, says he started working for the website after responding to a Craigslist Kenya advertisement for freelance writers.
CityNews attempted to contact Ehomework.ca several times through email, voicemail and text messages, but we did not receive a response prior to publishing.
Joseph says he personally knows of at least four other people working for this website.
Ehomework.ca says the people behind the papers are professional academic writers, stating on their website: “We do NOT outsource our work to other countries. All our work is done by tutors in Canada and the USA who have gone to North American Universities and are native English speakers”.
Joseph says he does not meet any of that criteria and feels students who are paying for these papers are also being duped.
“Understand that somebody somewhere is being exploited because of your work and you’re going to use that credit to find a good job there, leaving someone like me without anything.”
Plagiarism offences have steadily increased over the last four years, according to the University of Toronto.
In the academic year of 2017-18, the University of Toronto says there were a total of 1082 plagiarism offences. In addition, there were 600 cases of “unauthorized aid.”
“More and more colleges and universities are getting together to build best practices,” says Andrea Ridgley, Co-Chair Academic Integrity Council of Ontario. “Not only in terms of teaching, but how to talk to students and teach our students about contract cheating specifically”
The discipline for these offences can range from a reduced grade to expulsion.
The essay requested by CityNews was based on a real Humber College assignment from last March about the possible social problems that could arise with retail sales of cannabis. A Humber professor graded the essay for CityNews and gave it 48%.
They said the paper would have received a mark of 24/50 (48 per cent) based on the marking rubric used by the professor. The professor indicated that it was obvious to them that the “student” who wrote the paper did not attend class, did not use or reference the textbook nor adhere to the assignment guidelines.
Here are some other reasons for the failing grade:
– The paper does not follow the assignment guidelines, does not provide supporting evidence for wildly inaccurate statements of fact, and generally disregards the intent of the assignment.
– The paper failed to address any theoretical component, as outlined in the textbook, which uses the same set of theories in each chapter to discuss how those theories apply to the topic in that chapter.
– The paper repeatedly made vague and unfocused statements about ‘the law’ that are not in line with the topic of cannabis retailing.
– There were nonsensical sections such as the following:
“The population has further adopted various lifestyle decisions that largely influence their act of involving in cannabis abuse and buying. The lifestyle they desire is akin to what most of the celebrated celebrities and world icons in music adopt. The use of cannabis is evident amongst the celebrities, and hence, the copying of the act from them becomes inevitable leading to the situation where they get hooked into the act.”
– The paper was ostensibly about the potential social problems faced with retail sales of cannabis, but instead focused on cannabis as a drug with the potential to cause addiction, heart attack and suicide and had no information on the actual issues of retailing of cannabis.
– The citations used did not include any policy documents, and such materials are key to understanding this developing issue.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/02/19/cheating-at-u-of-t/
It’s called “contract cheating” — where students have a third party complete their assignments on their behalf, often for a fee.
CityNews first reported on contract cheating last March, after dozens of posters advertising the website Ehomework.ca were spotted on University of Toronto’s St. George campus.
Using the website, CityNews requested an essay on social problems in the criminal justice system and asked that it be written within 12 hours. For a payment of $165 the completed essay was received within the promised time.
Earlier this month, CityNews received an email from a man in Kenya who claims he’s the one who wrote the paper. He says he was paid only $18 of the $165.
“I don’t think if you expected that your essay could be written by someone in Kenya who has no knowledge in criminal justice system”, read the email from a man who asked to be called Joseph in an effort to protect his identity.
Joseph says he has written hundreds of assignments for at least 50 students over the last year. He sent us logins for students from schools including University of Toronto, York, University of Ottawa and Simon Fraser.
He also claims he was offered help immigrating to Canada if he continued to work for a reduced fee for at least one year.
“The promise was that I work for him, then he can send me a formal job offer for me to immigrate to Canada. He was to withheld part of salary to facilitate my immigration process.”
Joseph, who says he holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, says he started working for the website after responding to a Craigslist Kenya advertisement for freelance writers.
CityNews attempted to contact Ehomework.ca several times through email, voicemail and text messages, but we did not receive a response prior to publishing.
Joseph says he personally knows of at least four other people working for this website.
Ehomework.ca says the people behind the papers are professional academic writers, stating on their website: “We do NOT outsource our work to other countries. All our work is done by tutors in Canada and the USA who have gone to North American Universities and are native English speakers”.
Joseph says he does not meet any of that criteria and feels students who are paying for these papers are also being duped.
“Understand that somebody somewhere is being exploited because of your work and you’re going to use that credit to find a good job there, leaving someone like me without anything.”
Plagiarism offences have steadily increased over the last four years, according to the University of Toronto.
In the academic year of 2017-18, the University of Toronto says there were a total of 1082 plagiarism offences. In addition, there were 600 cases of “unauthorized aid.”
“More and more colleges and universities are getting together to build best practices,” says Andrea Ridgley, Co-Chair Academic Integrity Council of Ontario. “Not only in terms of teaching, but how to talk to students and teach our students about contract cheating specifically”
The discipline for these offences can range from a reduced grade to expulsion.
The essay requested by CityNews was based on a real Humber College assignment from last March about the possible social problems that could arise with retail sales of cannabis. A Humber professor graded the essay for CityNews and gave it 48%.
They said the paper would have received a mark of 24/50 (48 per cent) based on the marking rubric used by the professor. The professor indicated that it was obvious to them that the “student” who wrote the paper did not attend class, did not use or reference the textbook nor adhere to the assignment guidelines.
Here are some other reasons for the failing grade:
– The paper does not follow the assignment guidelines, does not provide supporting evidence for wildly inaccurate statements of fact, and generally disregards the intent of the assignment.
– The paper failed to address any theoretical component, as outlined in the textbook, which uses the same set of theories in each chapter to discuss how those theories apply to the topic in that chapter.
– The paper repeatedly made vague and unfocused statements about ‘the law’ that are not in line with the topic of cannabis retailing.
– There were nonsensical sections such as the following:
“The population has further adopted various lifestyle decisions that largely influence their act of involving in cannabis abuse and buying. The lifestyle they desire is akin to what most of the celebrated celebrities and world icons in music adopt. The use of cannabis is evident amongst the celebrities, and hence, the copying of the act from them becomes inevitable leading to the situation where they get hooked into the act.”
– The paper was ostensibly about the potential social problems faced with retail sales of cannabis, but instead focused on cannabis as a drug with the potential to cause addiction, heart attack and suicide and had no information on the actual issues of retailing of cannabis.
– The citations used did not include any policy documents, and such materials are key to understanding this developing issue.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/02/19/cheating-at-u-of-t/