EDMONTON -- Canadian universities and high schools are fighting an explosion of cheating Web sites, says a University of Alberta official - and students caught are paying a steeper price.

Numbers from the university\'s disciplinary committee show cases of cheating and plagiarism it deals with have tripled since 1999, to a high of more than 150 last year.

Student ombudsman Deborah Eerkes said the numbers are skewed by more cases being referred to the committee instead of being handled within departments. But she also said the university is powerless to stop kids from using the sites.

\"These things seem to be growing exponentially,\" she said, noting many sites are big businesses devoted to the practice. \"I seriously don\'t think there\'s a way to track it at all. You\'re never going to get them off the Internet or end access to them, so you have to remove the desire to use them.\"

The problem started in the U.S. with the explosion of Internet use in the mid-90s and Canada is seeing the trickle-down effect, said Eerkes.

\"Downloading a whole paper from the Internet is still not that common here in Canada. Down in the U.S., they\'re downloading entire essays to get into university and they\'re getting away with it.

\"You can kind of look at the U.S. as a preview of what\'s going to happen here. If you go to Google.com and do a search on term papers, you\'ll probably get a million hits.\"

Some of the sites charge a certain amount per page or for an entire book report or test. Many will actually tailor papers to a request, and charge hundreds of dollars for the work.

For example, 007 Term Papers boasts all of its term papers are written \"by college professors who are employed by various universities around the country.

\"These professors are also our good friends. They put in 100% effort in helping us.\"

Most such offers aren\'t reliable, Eerkes noted. \"Custom papers will let you send in what your topic is and they\'ll do it for you. But very few of them are actually decent papers.\"

School principals say the problem is growing, said Victor Tanti, a spokesman for Edmonton Public Schools. But the schools don\'t generally record how many were caught. \"There really is no way of knowing how many are doing it.\"

Vince Friesen, a vice-principal at Harry Ainlay high school, said the problem isn\'t new. But the frequency of it cropping up, particularly among English as a Second Language students, has increased. \"There does seem to be more of this plagiarism happening. I wouldn\'t say it\'s endemic, but it is a problem and our teachers are addressing it.\"

Mostly that\'s by teaching students what plagiarism is. As a result, the kids rarely reoffend. \"This year we\'ve only had one repeat and that was a case where she took the piece she\'d plagiarized and just put it in her own words. And we had to explain to her that wasn\'t quite what we meant.\"

The university has joined the U.S.-based Centre for Academic Integrity, which promotes integrity education. It\'s the only Canadian school with a member on the board of directors. Thirteen other Canadian schools have joined, and Eerkes has based her U of A integrity program on those offered south of the border.