| SafeAssign prevents plagiarism by detecting unoriginal content in student papers within your existing teaching and learning environment. |
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| SafeAssign can also further deter plagiarism by creating opportunities to educate students on proper attribution and citations while properly leveraging the wealth of information at their disposal. |
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Frequently Asked Questions |
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 How does it work? |
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| 1. |
SafeAssign checks papers and assignments (within Blackboard) against a collection of databases, including: |
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Internet – comprehensive index of billions of documents available for public access |
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ProQuest ABI/Inform database – millions of current articles, updated weekly |
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Institutional document – archives containing all papers submitted by users from CCCT&I, CVCC and RCCC |
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Global Reference Database – containing papers that were volunteered by |
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| 2. |
An Originality Report then is delivered to the teacher, student or both (determined by the teacher), highlighting any blocks of text in submitted documents that matched reference sources, with links back to the matching documents. Teachers can use the Originality Report to determine if plagiarism has occurred and, if needed, determine the appropriate next steps. |
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| Tell me about the Institutional Database. How does it work? |
| When a student submits a paper to SafeAssign, the paper is automatically indexed as part of that institution's Institutional Database. Each institution registered with SafeAssign has it's own Institutional Database index that is kept separate from other institution's database indexes. Your Institutional Database index is used as a source for checking papers submitted from your institution, but it is never used as a source for checking papers submitted from other institutions. |
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| Tell me about the Global Reference Database. How does it work? |
When a student submits a paper through SafeAssign, the student is also presented with an option to have the paper indexed as part of the Global Reference Database in addition to being automatically indexed in the Institutional Database. In other words, the student must opt-in to the Global Reference Database. This Global Reference Database index is used as a source for checking papers from all institutions.
Blackboard felt this was important because, although an institution has the authority to require that papers that are part of the student's academic record be used for purposes internal to the institution (e.g. cross-checking through the Institutional Database), it isn't clear that the institution has the authority to mandate that students must provide that paper to a third-party vendor for use outside the student's own institution. |
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| How can student’s check their work before submitting to an instructor? Or what is “Draft Mode”? |
| If a SafeAssignment is set to Draft, the submissions are just checked for plagiarism and are not indexed in either database. This is a great way to use SafeAssign to educate students about proper citation of sources. An instructor can set up a Draft SafeAssignment so students can run a draft of their paper through the plagiarism prevention algorithm, get a SafeAssignment Report, and see where the problem areas are. The student can then use that knowledge to revise their paper, making sure they're appropriately citing any uncited sources that SafeAssign noticed. |
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What sources does SafeAssign Check Against? |
No matter which indexes the paper is included in (none/Draft, just Institutional, or Institutional + opt-in Global), every paper that students submit to SafeAssign is checked against all of the available sources. This includes:
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your institution's Institutional Database (i.e. all previously submitted papers from your institution) |
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the Global Reference Database (i.e. all previously submitted papers from users who opted-in to the Global Reference Database) |
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over a billion web sites indexed by Microsoft Live Search |
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over 2.5 million journal and periodical articles indexed by ProQuest ABI/Inform |
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| I would like to learn more about SafeAssign! |
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To learn more about SafeAssign, click the links below:
Visit:
SafeAssign wiki:
Sample of what a report looks like
Blackboard SafeAssign Data Sheet
Instructor Manual |
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| Contact us with questions or comments: |
