The latest upgrade to Blackboard has added a new feature to SafeAssign. The “Suggest URL” option. This is for you as an instructor to suggest any URLs you think Safeassign might have missed.
Previously, SafeAssign used Yahoo Boss to trawl the internet and find matches for suspected plagiarism, due to changes within Yahoo this was unable to continue. Instead, SafeAssign is using its own servers and application to do most of the internet trawling. That’s why they ask for suggested links. This suggestion can take up to a month to go through to SafeAssign.
To clarify, SafeAssign uses:
- Internet: Comprehensive index of documents available for public access on the internet.
- ProQuest ABI/Inform database: More than 1,100 publication titles and about 2.6 million articles from 1990 to present time, updated weekly (exclusive access).
- Institutional document archives: Contains all papers submitted to SafeAssign by users in their respective institutions.
- Global Reference Database: Contains papers that were volunteered by students from Blackboard client institutions to help prevent cross-institution plagiarism.
The true strength of SafeAssign lies in its institutional repository, a database of all submissions from students to the SafeAssign.
It’s important to bear in mind that SafeAssign is merely a text matching tool and should not be solely relied upon as a plagiarism checker. The detection of plagiarism is an academic skill, and not a computer function. All detection software leads to both false positive and false negative diagnoses – so results should always be dealt with on a case by case basis.
Here are some resources that could help:
- Anti Plagiarism course by IT Training
- Blackboard help site guide to SafeAssign
If you would like more help with SafeAssign please either contact the Service Desk or leave a comment below.
