RamCT Blackboard And SafeAssign
Contents
Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................ 1
SafeAssign Overview.............................................................................................................. 2
Sources for Text Comparison ................................................................................................. 2
Acceptable File Formats ......................................................................................................... 3
File Size Limit – 10 MB ......................................................................................................... 3
Verify the SafeAssign Tool Is Turned On .............................................................................. 3
Create A SafeAssignment ....................................................................................................... 4
SafeAssignment Copied From Another Course? Synchronize!............................................. 6
Students: Submit a Safeassignment ........................................................................................ 7
View & Grade SafeAssign Submissions................................................................................. 8
View a SafeAssign (SA) Report ........................................................................................... 10
Interpret a SafeAssign Report ............................................................................................... 12
Remove a Comparison Source and Reprocess...................................................................... 12
RamCT Blackboard Support: ................................................................................................ 13
PREREQUISITES
Safari users – You must set Safari preferences to Always Accept Cookies in order to use
SafeAssign. Please see the easy to use, one page document to make this change.
Internet Explorer 8 users – For best results you should set IE 8 to use Compatibility View
with RamCT. Please see this easy to use, 1 page document to make this change.
We recommend referring your students to the RamCT Blackboard help website to answer
initial questions.
We also recommend assigning a paper early in the semester to verify that all of your
students can use SafeAssign without difficulty.
The SafeAssign server is hosted by Black Board. During heavy use times, it can take
several hours to process a paper and produce a SafeAssign report.
In courses where course copy has been used, the additional step of synchronizing must be
taken in order to activate SafeAssignment in the new course.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
1
SAFEASSIGN OVERVIEW
SafeAssign is a plagiarism deterrent software program that is built into RamCT
Blackboard. SafeAssign compares submitted assignments against a pool of academic
papers to identify areas of overlap between the submitted assignment and existing works.
SafeAssign can be used as a means to deter plagiarism and to educate students on how to
properly cite other sources in their work.
You should inform your students if you will be requiring them to submit their assignments
in SafeAssign. We recommend putting this information in your syllabus stating that a
requirement of your course will be the submission of assignments via SafeAssign.
Note: The Blackboard SafeAssign program is shared by numerous universities. During
busy times it can take a few hours or more for a student paper to be processed by
SafeAssign. After the assignment due date consider waiting overnight to allow your
student papers to be processed.
SOURCES FOR TEXT COMPARISON
SafeAssign uses a unique text matching algorithm designed to detect exact and inexact
matching between a paper and other source materials. SafeAssignments are compared
against several different databases, including:
Internet – comprehensive index of documents available for public access on the Internet;
ProQuest ABI/Inform database contains over 1,100 publication titles and about 2.6
million articles from 1990s to present time, updated weekly. These items include journals,
trade and industry news, dissertations and theses.
Institutional document archives contains all papers submitted to SafeAssign by users at
Colorado State University
Global Reference Database - Blackboard’s Global Reference Database is a separate
database that contains papers from other schools that use SafeAssign. Students can
voluntarily donate copies of their final, not draft, papers to help prevent plagiarism.
Each time a student submits a SafeAssignment paper they are given the option to
voluntarily enter their papers into the Global Reference Database; they agree not to remove
their papers from this database in the future. Submissions to the Global Reference Database
are extra copies that are given voluntarily for the purpose of helping with plagiarism
prevention. Blackboard does not claim ownership of submitted papers.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
2
ACCEPTABLE FILE FORMATS
Students can submit SafeAssignments in the following formats:
Microsoft Word (.doc and .docx)
Text (txt)
OpenOffice (odt)
Portable Document Format (pdf)
Rich Text (rtf),
HTML (.html, .htm).
FILE SIZE LIMIT – 10 MB
SafeAssign cannot process files that are larger than 10 MB. Files that are this large usually
contain large pictures/images.
Information on how to turn on image compression in programs such as MS Word, Excel
and PowerPoint is posted at:
http://help.ramct.colostate.edu/pdf/howto/CompressImagesWordPowerPoint.pdf
VERIFY THE SAFEASSIGN TOOL IS TURNED ON
Instructors should verify that SafeAssign is turned on in their RamCT Blackboard course.
1. Under Course Management | Control Panel go to
Customization.
2. Click on Tool Availability
3. The first SafeAssign item (left column) should be checked; this turns on SafeAssign for
the course.
4. The second SafeAssign item (far right column) should also be checked; this allows
SafeAssignments to be added to Content Areas in the course.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
3
CREATE A SAFEASSIGNMENT
These steps will create a SafeAssignment link on a Content Area in a RamCT Blackboard
course. This will also create a corresponding column in the Grade Center.
1. Go to a Content Area page in your RamCT Blackboard
course.
2. Under the Create Assessment drop down menu select
SafeAssignment.
3. Type a name for the
SafeAssignment.
4. Type the possible
points the
assignment is worth.
5. Type instructions
for the
SafeAssignment for your students to see.
6. Select Yes to
make the
SafeAssignment
available to
students.
7. Click the box next
to Track
Number of Views.
8. Decide whether to use a Display After and Display Until date criteria.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
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9. Draft
If you would like this SafeAssignment to be a draft,
place a check next to “Draft”.
We recommend that you add the work “Draft” to the
title of this SafeAssignment. E.g. “Paper 1 Draft”
10. Urgent Checking
You can specify if submitted papers should have a high priority for processing through
SafeAssign. Unless you have a genuine need, please do not use this option.
11. Student Viewable
Yes – students can see a copy of their SafeAssign report for their paper.
No – students cannot see a copy of their SafeAssign report for their paper.
12. An instructor can
choose to create an
announcement that lets
students know the
SafeAssignment is
available.
13. Click Submit
Note: A corresponding column will be created in the Grade Center.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
5
SAFEASSIGNMENT COPIED FROM ANOTHER COURSE? SYNCHRONIZE!
If course copy was used to copy content which included SafeAssignments, the additional step of
synchronizing must be taken in order to activate SafeAssignment in the new course.
1. Under Control Panel click Course Tools.
2. Click SafeAssign.
3. On the SafeAssign page click SafeAssignmemnts.
Note the “out of sync with the SafeAssign service” message at the top of the page.
4. At the top right of the page click Synchronize this
course.
This will register the synchronize the copied SafeAssignments
in your new course.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
6
STUDENTS: SUBMIT A SAFEASSIGNMENT
Your students can see and click on
the SafeAssignmen that you placed
on a Content Area page in your
course.
A SafeAssignment will always
include the CSU statement about
SafeAssign usage.
1. The student would click on View/Complete.
2. They will see any instructions the instructor provided.
3. The student can include comments in their
submission.
4. The student can browse their
local computer and attach their
assignment file.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
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5. The student can opt to include
a copy of their paper in the
SafeAssign Global Reference
Database.
6. The student then clicks Submit.
They will see a submitted successfully message.
VIEW & GRADE SAFEASSIGN SUBMISSIONS
Instructors can view SafeAssign submissions in two places:
1. In the Grade Center column for the SafeAssignment.
2. Under the SafeAssign tool
NOTE: Not all of the students in your RamCT Blackboard course
may initially appear on the list of students in the SafeAssign tool
view. The first time a student clicks on a SafeAssignment that you
created in your course, they will then appear on the list of students
in the SafeAssign tool.
We recommend that you grade and view your student SafeAssign submissions in the Grade
Center.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
8
1. In the Grade Center, under a SafeAssignment column, you
will see the icon
when a student has submitted
their SafeAssignment.
2. Click on the drop down menu next to that student’s
submission and select the Attempt item.
3. In the Student’s Work section, under the File column you can click and view the
student’s submission.
4. The Matching column displays the percentage that this assignment matches other items
found on the Internet.
5. The SA (SafeAssign) Report column will let you click on the SA report for this
submission.
6. Under Modify Grade the instructor can enter a grade
for this assignment. This grade will automatically be
entered into the grade center column.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
9
7. Under Feedback to Student an
instructor can type comments
8. File To Attach: An instructor
can return a copy of the graded
paper to the student.
9. Click Submit.
VIEW A SAFEASSIGN (SA) REPORT
Note: The Black Board SafeAssign program is shared by a number of universities. During
busy times it can take a few hours or more for a student paper to be processed by
SafeAssign. After the assignment due date consider waiting overnight to allow your
student papers to be processed.
The SafeAssign Report contains four sections: Paper Information, Submission Comment,
Suspected Sources and Paper Text.
1. Paper Information – a summary section that includes the student’s name, name of the
paper, date submitted and a matching score
Note in the example below the matching score of 100%. In this example, I had just
copied and pasted information about Benjamin Franklin from a web page into my paper.
SafeAssign detected that my text completely matched another source.
2. Submission Comment – includes any comments the student typed in when they
submitted their paper.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
10
3. Suspected Sources – sources SA checked and found text that matches text in the
submitted paper.
a. Highlight All – Click on this option highlight all of the text in a student’s paper
that matches one or more of Safe Assign’s comparison sources.
b. Re-Processing - You can remove a source used by SafeAssign by placing a check
next to an item and then clicking on the Re-processing icon.
4. Paper Text – Shows the text the student submitted and cites where the student’s text
matches the suspected sources SA found in its comparison.
Save report to disk: provides you with the option to
save a copy of this SA report on your local computer.
Print version – allows you to print a copy of the SA
report
Direct link – allows you to email a copy of the link to
this specific SA report to yourself or someone else.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
11
INTERPRET A SAFEASSIGN REPORT
From the SafeAssign Users Manual:
“Sentence matching scores are the percentage probability that two phrases have the same
meaning. This number can also be interpreted as the reciprocal to the probability that these
two phrases are similar by chance. For example, a score of 90 percent means that there is a
90 percent probability that these two phrases are the same and a 10 percent probability that
they are similar by chance and not because the submitted paper includes content from the
existing source (whether or not it is appropriately attributed).
Overall score is an indicator of what percentage of the submitted paper matches existing
sources. This score is a warning indicator only and papers should be reviewed to see if the
matches are properly attributed.
Scores below 15 percent: These papers typical include some quotes and few common
phrases or blocks of text that match other documents. These papers typically do not require
further analysis, as there is no evidence of the possibility of plagiarism in these papers.
Scores between 15 percent and 40 percent: These papers include extensive quoted or
paraphrased material or they may include plagiarism. These papers should be reviewed to
determine if the matching content is properly attributed.
Scores over 40 percent: There is a very high probability that text in this paper was copied
from other sources. These papers include quoted or paraphrased text in excess and should
be reviewed for plagiarism.”
REMOVE A COMPARISON SOURCE AND REPROCESS
Even if a student has properly cited materials in SafeAssign they can receive a high
matching score; SafeAssign does not check for proper citation. It just checks for matching
text. Or perhaps you are letting a student submit another version of their paper. Their
original paper was entered into the SafeAssign database for CSU and will likely result in a
high matching score.
You can remove a matching source from the SafeAssign report and then have SafeAssign
reprocess the paper.
1. In the SafeAssign report, under Suspected Sources, place a check next to one of more of
the matching sources that you would like to remove from SafeAssign comparison
checking.
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
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2. Click on the Re-processing icon at the bottom of the page.
3. SafeAssign will generate a new report without the sources you checked.
RAMCT BLACKBOARD SUPPORT:
Contact your RamCT College Coordinator
http://www.help.ramct.colostate.edu/ramctsupport_faculty.aspx
Visit the http://help.ramct.colstate.edu website
Email support at: ramctsupport@colostate.edu
RamCT Training & Support
ACNS/Colorado State University Revised April. 29, 2013
RamCT Blackboard and SafeAssign
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