We are very pleased to announce that “SafeAssign”, a plagiarism checking tool, will be available in Blackboard from the start of Summer School 2010. It will be available in all Blackboard papers at no cost to University staff.
The tool will allow staff to submit student assignments, either one-by-one, or in a zip file (the recommended method) to SafeAssign, which will check the reports against each other, other University of Otago assignments, and sources on the internet, and return a report on each assignment. This process takes anywhere from a few minutes, to a few hours, depending on how busy SafeAssign is. It accepts a number of different document formats, which are:
- Microsoft Word document: .doc or .docx
- Rich Text Format: .rtf
- HTML: .htm or .html
- Text: .txt
- PDF: .pdf
- Zip compressed: .ZIP used to upload multiple files (maximum of 100 files)
Staff may collect files to be submitted by using the Digital Drop-Box or Assignment (recommended) tools in Blackboard. Once submitted by the student, they will need to be collected by teaching staff and submitted to Safeassign. Staff who are not using Blackboard for their paper may request a site to be set up for them specifically for Safeassign. It is also possible to set up a departmental Blackboard paper so that all teaching staff in the same paper so that they may submit student assignments.
We are working on developing instructions which will be made available on the Blackboard Help Site, and a training course (which will be available to staff at no cost). We hope to offer training to Summer School staff in late 2009, and to all other staff from the start of 2010. The tool itself will be available in Blackboard for the start of Summer School 2010.
If you have any questions about SafeAssign, please contact the ITS HelpDesk (helpdesk@otago.ac.nz, extn 8888, 03 479 8888).
