View the SafeAssign Getting Started tutorial to learn how to turn SafeAssign on for Blackboard Assignments.
Once an assignment is submitted by a student (or an instructor using Direct Submit) into SafeAssign, it is checked against various databases and the Internet for possible plagiarism. When SafeAssign completes the checking process, a SafeAssign (SA) Originality Report is generated providing the results. The report is always visible to instructors and optionally can be made visible to students.
This SafeAssign Video (13m, 55s) defines SafeAssign, demonstrates how to enable SafeAssign within Blackboard, and provides information for understanding and interpreting the results of the Originality Report.
IMPORTANT NOTE: SafeAssign is best used as a tool to assist in decision-making, as opposed to a definitive indicator of originality or of plagiarism.
Originality reports can be accessed/viewed using 2 different methods:
- From the Grade Assignment screen
- The SafeAssign option under the Course Tools area of the Control Panel.
Accessing SafeAssign Reports
- Enter the course where the SafeAssignment resides.
- In the Control Panel, expand Course Tools and click on SafeAssign.
NOTE: If SafeAssign does not exist in Course Tools, please see Question 1 in the
FAQ section of this tutorial.
Another option to view the Originality Report results is through grading of the assignment where SafeAssign is being used, either through the Grade Center or Needs Grading.
- Click on SafeAssignments.
- Next to the title of the SafeAssignment in question, click on the Action Menu and select View Submissions.
- To view a given student’s SA Report, click on the green checkmark
icon under SA Report for the student in question.
Viewing/Interpreting the Originality Report
There are (3) sections to the Originality Report:
- Report Summary
- Sources
- Submission Pane
Note: A "non-existent paper" is listed as a source in the Originality Report in this case. SafeAssign detects a match, but you can't open the source to compare matches because the source has been deleted.
Report Summary
Clicking on the "View Report Summary" provides a summary on matched content found in the submitted work. SafeAssign generates a level of risk for plagiarism (e.g. low, medium or high risk for matched content) along with a calculated percentage of matched content found.
Sources 
The Sources section of the report flags content it matched from the submitted work to content found in one of SafeAssign's databases:
Global Database: reviews submission against completed work students at other Blackboard institutions have submitted into SafeAssign.
Internet: reviews submission against ProQuest database (this database contains millions of pages of digitized content and more than 450,000 eBooks) and performs a broader internet search for matching text using an internal search service.
Institutional Database: reviews submission against completed work other CMU students have submitted into a Blackboard SafeAssign assignment at the University.
The Top Sources category identifies the top source issues found in the above categories.
IMPORTANT NOTE!
SafeAssign does review against known "cheating" sites such as Chegg, Course Hero, etc. as part of its internet review, however, it only reviews submissions against content that has been downloaded from these sites. SafeAssign downloads content from a large number of sites, including ProQuest, and then checks submissions against this downloaded content. However, unlike ProQuest, Chegg and Course Hero pages are not static content provider sites and instead are more dynamic content generators, which in turn is not something that can be downloaded. The same holds true for text generated from ChatGPT or other AI generation sites — it is not possible to download this dynamic content. Wherever the content is static, SafeAssign can download and store in its database. Whatever content is dynamically generated, it is not content that can be stored and then checked against.
Submission
The student’s submitted work is shown in the main panel where matching blocks of text are identified with a corresponding number and highlight color found in the Sources section of the Originality Report. Each source has a color specific to the source — up to 30 unique colors for 30 different sources. Clicking on a highlighted section of text opens a menu that presents a probability percentage of matched content with the student’s submitted text on the left compared to the original source on the right.
Filtering Matched Sources
Once a paper has been processed, suspected sources can be filtered from the SA Report.
- Enter the SafeAssign Report by using the method outlined above.
- Expand a database category to view the findings. If, after careful review of the identified matched content has been determined to be acceptable, click on the
symbol to the right of the identified source. As Sources are deemed acceptable, the percentage of matched content automatically adjusts.
NOTE: The Open in Window Icon
found at the top of the Sources menu, opens up all the Original Sources content was found matched to in a new window for more thorough viewing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. I do not see SafeAssign in the course tools area of the Control Panel. Can this be enabled?
A1. Yes. To enable SafeAssign within a course, expand the Customization group in the Control Panel and select Tool Availability. Now, find the entry that says SafeAssign and ensure that the first box is checked. Also in this menu, ensure that the box for SafeAssignment is checked. When finished, click Submit at the bottom.
Q2. Is SafeAssign capable of finding 100% of all matching sources in a document?
A2. The following information is provided from Blackboard's Knowledge Base:
SafeAssign is not infallible. The system can return both false positives, meaning items that are not plagiarized that SafeAssign flags as a match, and false negatives, items that may actually match other text, but SafeAssign does not identify as a match.
False positives can occur because, for example, SafeAssign makes no distinction between cited or un-cited text. For instance, appropriately cited material that would not be considered an instance of plagiarism can still be flagged as a match.
False negatives can come about for a variety of reasons:
- There are sources SafeAssign simply cannot check against such as printed books or journals, original papers that were not previously submitted using SafeAssign, sources behind proprietary authentication mechanisms or not otherwise available publicly.
- To detect matches, SafeAssign uses a proprietary algorithm that weights the potential matches. This helps assure the quality of results and avoid false positives for common phrases, for example. However, this can sometimes mean that matches an Instructor might consider meaningful fall below SafeAssign's confidence threshold and are not reported by the application. This can be perceived by the Instructor as a false negative.
SafeAssign is not designed to find specific matches, but rather the best match from any source. Instructors often expect SafeAssign to match against a particular source, either on the web or a previous submission or sometimes a print book. Sometimes SafeAssign will help confirm such suspicions, but it is possible that SafeAssign will return a different match, or no match at all, because it is checking against sources different from the Instructor's expected source or because it is executing the queries differently than the Instructor intends.
Ultimately, the decision as to whether plagiarism has occurred must be made by the Instructor. As long as Instructors approach SafeAssign with the appropriate expectations, as a tool to assist in decision-making as opposed to a definitive indicator of originality or of plagiarism, SafeAssign can provide valuable assistance to faculty and Students in indicating possible cases of plagiarism for further investigation.
SafeAssign does not run a Google search. SafeAssign is designed to search the following databases:
- Institution database
- Global database
- ProQuest database
- API call to Bing, meaning that searching bing.com likewise does not guarantee a match in SA.
SafeAssign is designed as a tool to deter students from cheating and assist instructors in detecting possible cases of plagiarism. It does not a guarantee 100% accuracy.
Q3. The SafeAssign Originality Report did not include some matching web content that I expected it to find--why was it not found and can I request it to be included?
A3. Papers are evaluated against works retrieved from the Internet through the Microsoft Bing search engine, the ProQuest ABI/Inform Databases, and previous papers submitted by CMU students and other institutions. If a specific URL is not included, instructors have the ability to suggest a new URL by accessing:
Course Tools>>SafeAssign>>Suggest URL>>Enter a URL to be included as a SafeAssign match lookup source.
SafeAssign will attempt to include all webpages available under the suggested base website URL.
Q4. Is it possible for the Originality Report to change?
When an Originality Report is generated for the first time, it is stored and repeatedly used until the paper is re-submitted, which would in turn re-generate a new Originality Report. As long as the paper is not re-submitted, the initial Originality Report displays. If the Originality Report refers to a source that has subsequently been deleted or changed, the Originality Report does not change, however, the reference to the plagiarism source can get broken. So, the Originality Report is retained from its creation, while the references can change or disappear. If it is desired to “refresh” the references, then the paper should be re-submitted which will trigger a new Originality Report to be created.