I think by now everyone knows my thoughts on the compromised CIP exam. But in the last few weeks something...interesting...has happened, and I got asked about it the other day, with a suggestion that I might have been behind it.
Someone has been intentionally publicly compromising the exam by posting real questions, and answers, around industry websites and blogs. I first found out about it when an anonymous poster tried to post 4 comments to this blog on May 17, 2022. I moderate comments, so when I got the email about there being comments to approve or not, I took a look and immediately recognized them for what they were and disapproved them so they would NOT show up on my blog. I also retook the unproctored CIP exam to confirm that they were real exam questions and answers, and they were. I've also seen at least one other blog with a similar comment. Each comment consisted of 15-20 exam questions and answers.
Then, on May 22, someone named "B Cummins" sprayed the AIIM community with what appears to be a single post. I get email announcements when there are posts in groups I'm a member of, and I got them from CIP Study Group, CIPs Unite!, Records Managers, and the Open Forum. I also got sent it directly through the Community messaging; I heard from at least one other person that they had received it via message as well.
Each post is structured the same way:
CIP Exam Compromised
kejserinden nye klæder
NIAGLHLIRLSWDY
And then the exam questions and answers. I put the phrase through Google Translate and it comes back with "the empress new clothes" in Danish. I tried to Google the acronym and couldn't find anything that seemed to make sense.
The Community sites were cleaned up pretty quickly, and as I noted above the comments were never live on this blog. But I want to be absolutely clear: while I disagree with AIIM's handling of the CIP, and have for some time (in fact, it's why I left AIIM last year), I would never, under any circumstances, stoop to actually publishing real exam questions. It goes against everything I believe about certification programs and exams; moreover, I have too much respect for all the CIPs who passed the proctored exam, and even those who passed the unproctored one, to dishonor their achievements by publishing live exam questions.
Now, I did save a copy of one of the five times I took the unproctored exam. AIIM announced on May 12th that they had a plan to return the exam to a proctored status in approximately 60 days, and I will be taking the proctored exam again and comparing it to the one I saved to see if they updated the exam, which is absolutely essential since it's clearly out in the wild, or if they simply took the shortcut of turning proctoring on for the same, compromised, exam. I know where I'd put my money given their behavior regarding the exam over the last 6 months, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. Once I know the answer either way I will "double-delete" the unproctored exam I saved.
But in the meantime, I want to make this 100% clear through this post: I did not make the B Cummins posts, I certainly didn't attempt to post those comments to my own blog, and I have no idea who is behind this. I wish I did, because I'd publicly expose and denounce them for the cheating cheaters that they are.
If anyone, particularly anyone at AIIM, has questions, I'm happy to entertain them including sharing the complete messages I received through the Community, from the Community posts, and from my blog. AIIM staff would be able to see the questions and confirm them on their own; anyone else, I'll of course remove any exam questions before sharing the messages. If you want to take me up on this, feel free to reach out at jwilkins13@gmail.com.
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