Using SafeAssignment

SafeAssignment is a “plagiarism detection” feature that is available inside every Blackboard course at EKU. It is ready for use by any instructor, even someone who has never used Blackboard at all. Your students’ work must be in electronic format.

SafeAssignment compares the text of a file in any of three formats (Microsoft Word, Rich Text Format or plain text) to millions of files gathered from the Web, from major library databases and from other submissions at EKU. When you view the online report from SafeAssignment, matching texts are displayed within the student’s work with color highlights that are linked to the sources, making it very easy for you to determine whether the usage of the material is legitimate or plagiaristic. If you want to learn more about how this process works, and view sample reports of students’ work, please visit http://www.safeassignment.com.

SafeAssignment can be used in two ways: to scan students’ files as they are submitted through Blackboard, and to scan any files you wish to check. It’s not designed to help you with handwritten or printed documents. When a file is sent to SafeAssignment, the results are sent back to your Blackboard site.

Set up a Safe Assignment link:

Go to the content area where you want students to submit their work--for example, the "Assignments" area--and click Edit View. (This is equivalent to navigating through the Control Panel to the same spot.) On the editing bar at the top of the window, look for a drop-down menu at the right end, typically showing the "Learning Unit" entry. Open the drop-down menu and select SafeAssignment (near the bottom of the list). NOTE: If you see a few buttons on this top bar, but no drop-down menu, it means that you need to fix some of the settings in your Control Panel before proceeding. Go to the Help menu at the top of your Blackboard pages and read the item about "restoring missing tools."
With SafeAssignment selected on the menu, click the Go button next to it.
Enter a name for the assignment. Keep it short because this will become the label on the Gradebook column.
Enter a number of points for the assignment.
If you want to give students directions here, you may type them in the text box. Many instructors provide the directions independently and so they leave this text box empty.
Scroll to the bottom of the window and click Submit. You can adjust the options later if needed.
You will see a message confirming the creation of the link. Click OK, or use the links on the crumb trail at the top of the window.
In the content area there is now a link, marked "View/Complete." Students will use that link to submit their work. You, as the instructor, can't use the link. But you should log in to Blackboard with your pretend-student username and see how the process works.

Locating results, interpreting reports and grading students' files:

Your students' work is available to you in two different ways, both accessed through the Control Panel in your course.
1. Use the link labeled "MyDropBox Suite (SafeAssignments)" to monitor the students' progress and to view comparative results. The display from clicking this link lists all the SafeAssignments links in your course, and when you click a "View" link, the page lists all the students and their submissions. You do not have a direct connection to the Gradebook from this view, but you can open their files, review their SA reports and use the Re:Mark function to add comments to their files. (Note: the "Grade" box on the Re:Mark window has no meaning or function within Blackboard. Use the Grade box on the Modify Grade window instead.) The tabs at the top of this window lead to specialized functions such as customizing the Re:Mark feature with your own preset comments, submitting any files you want processed for your own records, and enabling students to "peer review" each others' work.
  
  (and/or)
2. Use the Gradebook to locate each student's work and post the grade. In the column for the assignment, each student's submission will appear initially as an exclamation point. Clicking the exclamation point leads to a "Modify Grade" window where you can open the student's file, review the SA report, use the Re:Mark function to add comments to the student's work, and post a grade and any comments for the student. (Note: the "Grade" box on the Re:Mark window has no meaning or function within Blackboard. Use the Grade box on the Modify Grade window instead.)
When you view the "SA Report" for a given file, interpret the results cautiously. Generally speaking, a text "matching" score of 30% or less does not raise grave concerns about plagiarism because of the frequency of common expressions and the sensitivity of the SafeAssignment programming. If your students are likely to be using many quotations, you may want to inspect every report carefully, even when SA reports a "matching" score of only a few percent, to verify adequate documentation of every source. Whenever SA reports a "matching" score greater than 30%, you should look in the report for blocks of colored text and use your own judgment about whether the usage is innocent (e.g., copying the questions you asked, repeating common knowledge and ordinary language), academically honest (e.g., quoting a source and citing it correctly), or plagiaristic. Clicking a block of colored text brings you a special box that parallels the student's text with the Internet source that matches it closely, and you can use that information to judge quickly whether the passage is actually copied or not. Note also that you can refine the visible results by marking specific sources for exclusion--for example, if you assigned the student to review a particular Web site and the student innocently included large blocks of text from it--and getting the file processed again.
After you have reviewed a student’s submission, the grade you enter on the Modify Grade window will replace the red exclamation point in the Gradebook. Note that if you post a grade in the Gradebook before the student submits the file (e.g., for a preliminary draft), your mark will be erased when the student completes the submission.

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