SafeAssign is an anti-plagiarism tool integrated within Black-board. It uses a text match-ing algorithm to compare a student’s submitted work to several online database sources:

• Internet sources (powered by Windows Live search www.live.com• ProQuest ABI/Inform data-base of over 2.5 million articles.• SafeAssign institutional data-base contains all papers sub-mitted to SafeAssign by UMB students. • SafeAssign Global Reference Database to which students voluntarily submit papers, used across institutions from over 2,200 organizations.

Instructors may use SafeAssign in two ways

1. SafeAssignment An instructor may set up SafeAssignments to which students may submit their work. The program produces an originality re-port that is viewable by the instructor and students if the option is selected. Upon viewing the SafeAssign report an instruc-tor can check to see if the matching parts of the document are cited properly. SafeAssign is integrated with the Grade Book.

2. Direct SubmitInstructors may submit several student papers at one time by uploading a zip archive outside of the SafeAssign tool. Direct Submit is not integrated with the Grade Book.

Getting Started 1. Log in Login to Blackboard http://boston.umassonline.net

2. Select your course section From the Courses section click on the link for the course in which you will be using SafeAssign.

SafeAssign Resources: • umb.edu Search: “SafeAssign”• www.safeassign.com • wiki.safeassign.com

SafeAssign at UMass Boston

File types accepted doc, docx -Microsoft Word odt - Open Office.org pdf - Adobe PDF txt - Plain text rtf - Rich text htm or html - web page zip - Multiple files in any of the above formats (Direct Submit only)

Version TNM011912

1. From Build tab select Course Content from Course Tools menu.

2. Click Add Content Link then select SafeAssign

SafeAssign

Setting up SafeAssign for the first time

3. Click Create SafeAssign

4. Enter a title into the text box. Check the box to have assign-ments open in a new window if desired.

5. Click Configure!

The SafeAssignment icon will appear on your course home page along with the title you have entered.

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SafeAssign

Working from the Teach tab click the SafeAssignments link from your course home page.

Click Create SafeAssignment.

Creating a SafeAssignment

Enter a title and description for the SafeAssignment.

Enter the date and time the SafeAssignment is to be made available.

Using the Draft FeatureSelecting the Yes option allows students to submit a paper without adding it to the UMB institutional database. Stu-dents may submit papers mul-tiple times until the due date.

Using the draft feature pre-vents SafeAssign from re-porting a matched source if a student makes revisions to a paper and submits it more than one time.

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Student Viewable: Selecting Yes makes it possible for a student to view a SafeAssign report for their work before submitting their final paper.

SafeAssign

Urgent CheckingDoes not significantly affect processing time, which usually takes 1.5 min. Processing can take longer during peak periods.

GradingSince the grade book is inte-grated with SafeAssign, grades entered here will be viewable in the grade book. Select a numeric option and enter the total amout of points possible or select the alphanumeric option.

Click Save.

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SafeAssign Best PracticesBy setting up a SafeAssign-ment in draft mode in conjunc-tion with releasing SafeAssign reports to students, SafeAssign can be used as a way to educate students about plagiarism.Allowing students to use SafeAssign this way as well as

providing links to guides for citing resources properly helps students to conceptualize SafeAssign as a tool for their use, much like a spell checker or grammar checker. You may wish to use the draft feature for the first few assignments or you may choose to create two versions

of each SafeAssignment; one in draft mode initially and another SafeAssignment for a final ver-sion of the same class assign-ment. See SafeAssignment options on page 12.

SafeAssign

Grade: Allows you to enter a grade for each student.Text: Links to submitted paper and comments from student.Matching: Percentage of matching between student’s submitted work and outside sources.SA Report: Links to the SafeAssign Report.File: Allows you to download the original file submitted.Submitted: Date and Time paper was submitted.

Viewing Student Submissions

Access Home Page from Teach tab view.Click the SafeAssignments link.

Click the title of the SafeAssign-ment to access to access SafeAs-sign Dropbox.

Once students have submitted a SafeAssignment, it will appear in the SafeAssign Dropbox.

NOTE:Quotations will always be flagged as potential plagia-rism in a SafeAssign report, even if a student has includ-ed the information within quotation marks and cited the sources properly.

SafeAssignment Dropbox

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SafeAssign

SafeAssignment Reports provide a starting point for further investi-gation. A matching score lets you know how much of the student’s submitted document matches other sources and provides the result as a percentage.

Select the SA Report icon to view the SafeAssign Report

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source: Blackboard

Example SA (SafeAssign) Report, page 1

Blackboard recommends:Scores over 15% should be checked to see if content has been cited properlyscores over 40% indicate plagiarism is likely and fur-ther investigation is recom-mended.

An overall matching score is presented as a percentage value at the top of the page within the Paper Information section of the report.

If there are potential matches, the suspected sources will ap-pear within the next section.

Viewing SafeAssign Reports

SafeAssign

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Clicking on a matched sentence will provide more detail, a match percentage, and a visual com-parison of each sentence from the uploaded paper to the source file.

source: Blackboard

Example SA (SafeAssign) Report, page 2

SafeAssign

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Direct Submit

From course home page, click-Build tab, next click Add Content Link and select SafeAssign Direct Submit.Click Create SafeAssign Direct-Submit.

Enter a title into the box and click Configure!

Set up Direct Submit for the first time

The Direct Submit tool allows an instructor to submit pa-pers to the UMB institutional database outside of using the SafeAssignment tool. It is for Instructor use only. Direct Submit can be used by instructors for submitting student work from previous courses to build a repository of documents in the institu-tional database. This option can also be used to submit papers received by email or outside of the course section.Papers that are submitted through direct submit can not be added to Global Data-base.Multiple files can be uploaded at one time as a zip archive (up to 100 files).Direct Submit is not integrat-ed with grade book.

An Direct Submit icon and content link will appear with the title you have entered.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Instructors may submit student papers to the UMass Boston database at any time directly to the SafeAssign Direct Submit tool provided that all student personal information is removed including, student name, id number, address, etc.

Click Private or Shared tab. Pa-pers added to a folder created in the Shared tab are viewable by TAs, designers and additional in-structors enrolled in the course section.

Create a folder for organizing submissions by entering a folder title under New Folder and click Add.Click Submit Papers to add files.

SafeAssign

Select a paper submission option:Submit as a draftSkip Plagiarism checking

Select Submission option:Click Upload file option. Click Browse to upload file or click

Alternatively, select the Copy/Paste Document option, and enter a title and paste the text into the text box.

Click Submit.

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Submit Papers via Direct Submit

From course home page click Teach tab.Click the Direct Submit content link from the Home page.

The Direct Submit management console appears.

SafeAssign

Grading SafeAssignments

To grade a SafeAssignment click Teach tab.

Click on SafeAssignment con-tent link from Home Page

Click the SafeAssignment link

Click the ! link in the Grade col-umn.

Enter the Grade in the Grade box.

Enter comments for the student and/or attach a feedback file.

Click Submit.

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SafeAssign

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From Teach tab, click Grade Book from Instructor Tools menu.

SafeAssignment grades are viewable/editable in the Grade Book

SafeAssign

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The draft mode of SafeAssign-can be used to help students learn about plagiarism. You may want to select the draft option for each SafeAssignment ini-tially or for the first few assign-ments given in a course.

An instructor may also use the draft mode to review student papers and provide feedback, allowing the student to submit the paper again. Student View-able can be set to No if you do not want them to view their SafeAssign reports.

Choose the final mode after you have given students a chance to view their own SafeAssign Reports in draft mode.

Student submits paper

Student submits paper

SafeAssign Options

Student reviews SafeAssign report

Student reviews SafeAssign report

Student edits paper

instructor sets up SafeAssignment

instructor sets up SafeAssignment

Draft is set to YesStudent Viewable is set to Yes

Process can be repeatedup until due date

Setting Draft is set to NoStudent Viewable is set to Yes

Draft mode

Final mode A

Student submits paperinstructor sets up SafeAssignment

Draft is set to NoStudent Viewable is set to No

Final mode B

instructor reviews paper and SafeAssign report

instructor reviews paper and SafeAssign report