SafeAssign

This guide pertains to Ultra Course View.

If your course is in Original Course View, see the Original Course View tutorial collection.

 

When to Use?

SafeAssign is a feature included within Blackboard that is useful in detecting and reducing possible cases of plagiarism by students. After enabling the SafeAssign option in Blackboard, submitted student work is then checked against an institutional database, as well as various larger repositories for matching content.

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.

The SafeAssign plagiarism detection service supports the following file formats: .doc, .docx, .pdf, .htm, .html, .rtf, .txt, .odt, and .zip. It is recommended that special characters be avoided when naming files for submission to SafeAssign (avoid using spaces, quotation marks, the pound sign, percent sign, or other special characters).

See:

 

Turning SafeAssign on for Graded Activities

You can use SafeAssign to check for potential plagiarism in student submissions for both assignments and tests in the Ultra Course View.

1. Open Assignment Settings or Test Settings in a new or existing assessment.

2. click the gear icon to open the side panel menu and scroll to the Additional Tools section.  Under Originality Report, select Enable SafeAssign, toggle the Enable SafeAssign button on > Save.

Originality Report

3.  Toggle Enable SafeAssign to on:

SafeAssign Toggle Button

When you enable SafeAssign for the assessment, you can also allow students to view the Originality Report. If you allow multiple attempts, an Originality Report is generated for each attempt a student submits.

4. Choose whether to exclude submissions from the institutional and Global Reference Databases.  Exclude all student submissions for this assignment from the institutional or global reference databases IF this is a draft of a final paper to be submitted or a portion of a final paper to be later submitted in class.  All submissions to SafeAssign are submitted into a CMU database (institutional) and Global Database for comparison to subsequent submissions unless this box is checked.

5. Close the layer. Your changes are saved.

See Also: SafeAssign

 

Direct Submission by Instructor into SafeAssign

Direct Submit allows instructors to submit items to SafeAssign outside of the assessment context.  SafeAssign appears as an instructor tool in the Details & Actions menu under Books & Tools.
 

Using SafeAssign Direct Submit

There are two document submission methods:

  • Upload File: Select this option to drag or upload files via a pop-up window. The standard SafeAssign document processing rules apply:
    • Maximum support file size is 10 MB
    • Supported file types: .zip, .doc, .docx, .docm, .ppt, .pptx, .odt, .txt, .pdf, .rtf, and .html.
  •  Copy/Paste Text: Select this option to enter a title for the submission and paste the text.

 

Submission Options

As part of the submission process, instructors will have a few processing options:

  • Check for Plagiarism (on by default):
    • If on, SafeAssign processes the submission and generates an Originality Report.
    • If off, SafeAssign does not produce an Originality Report. The submission is processed.
    • Use case example: The instructor uploads materials they suspect students might misuse. The instructor doesn't require a report for these specific materials and turns off the "Check for plagiarism" option. Submission is processed, but the Originality Report is not generated. The system will compare all future student submissions against these resources.
  •  Add to Institutional Database (on by default): When on, submissions are added to the institutional database.

Instructors cannot deactivate both 'Check for Plagiarism' and 'Add to Institutional Database' at once. If both options are turned off, it is not possible to proceed with file submission.

  • Share option (deselected by default):
    • All submissions are private by default. These submissions are only visible to the person who submitted the file across courses.
    • If selected, the submission is visible to other course instructors within the course where the file was submitted.

Once a user submits the file, the submission panel closes, and a confirmation message appears. Users may see the information as it is processed.
 

Navigating the Direct Submit page

Instructors can use the Search Item field to locate submissions quickly. Instructors can filter entries based on Privacy (All, Shared, Private) or Database (All, Added, Not Added). The pagination at the bottom lets instructors view more submissions across several pages.

For each submission, instructors can view the following:

  • Item name
  • Processing status
  • Link to the Originality Report
  • Matching Score
  • Database status
  • Submission Date
  • Privacy status

Instructors can organize the table entries by:

  • Item Name (alphabetical order)
  • Matching Score (from highest to lowest or vice versa)
  • Submission Date (from newest to oldest)
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