SafeAssign How-To for Instructors

There are two ways to submit student work to the SafeAssign service. The SafeAssign Assignment tool allows students to submit work themselves. The SafeAssign Direct Submit tool allows instructors to submit papers for evaluation on a case-by-case basis, without student involvement.

Student work submitted to SafeAssign tools are checked against databases that include:

• Internet
• ProQuest ABI/Inform Database
• Institutional document archives – an archive of papers submitted by Purdue students
• Global Reference Database – an archive of papers voluntarily submitted by students from Blackboard client institutions to help prevent cross-institutional plagiarism

After student work is compared with documents in the databases, SafeAssign produces an originality report that shows matching sequences of words in the submitted assignment, any matching sources, and the percentage of matching words in the report.

Add the SafeAssign Tool

• Select the Build tab in your Blackboard course site.
• Under “Course Content,” click Add Content Link in the main area of the page.
• A menu appears. Click the SafeAssign link.
• The area under "SafeAssign Assignment expands." Click the Create SafeAssign button.
• On the resulting screen, enter a title for the tool. If you want SafeAssign to open in a new window, click “Open in a new browser window.”
• When done, click the Configure button.

The SafeAssign Assignment tool is now added to your Blackboard course site. A single SafeAssign link in your site can contain multiple assignments.

Create a SafeAssign Assignment

• Select the Teach tab in your Blackboard course site.
• From the course homepage, click the SafeAssign icon/link created in the preceding steps.
• Click the Create SafeAssignment button.
• A new page appears. Enter an assignment title, description, due date (note: the time is currently listed as Eastern Daylight Time or EDT), whether it is a draft assignment, whether the report should be viewable by the student, how urgently reports should be made available, and the assignment point value.
• When done, click the Save button.

To try out the tool as a student, go back to your Blackboard course site Home Page and select the Student View tab. Assignment submissions can be in Microsoft Word (doc or docx), txt, RTF, HTML, or PDF format. Follow the following steps to properly submit a paper in Student View:

• In your Blackboard class, click on the link/icon for SafeAssign.
• Under “Available Assignments,” all assignments available for submission may be accessed.

• Click on the assignment you want to turn in to read more details about the assignment and to upload your paper.
• To submit your paper, click on the Browse button and search for your file.

• Then click Save.
• If you want to submit your paper to the SafeAssign Global Reference Database, check the box next to “I agree to submit my paper to the Global Reference Database.”
• Add additional comments as needed.
• Then click submit.

The next screen will confirm the submission of your paper and remove the assignment from the “Available Assignments” list.  You may view all submitted papers by clicking on their title names.  Your grade, matching percentage and SafeAssign Report will appear after your paper has been compared with other databases, papers and the internet.  This may take several minutes.

Access the SafeAssign Direct Submit Tool

Add the SafeAssign Direct Submit Tool

• Select the Build tab in your Blackboard course site.
• Under “Course Content,” click Add Content Link in the main area of the page.
• A menu appears. Click the SafeAssign Direct Submit link.
• The area under SafeAssign Assignment expands. Click the Create SafeAssign Direct Submit button.
• On the resulting screen, enter a title for the tool.
• When done, click the Configure button.

The SafeAssign Direct Submit tool is now added to your Blackboard course site.

Hide SafeAssign Direct Submit from Students

• Select the Build tab in your Blackboard course site.
• Click the ActionLinks button ().
• A menu appears. Click the Hide Item link.
• The link is now hidden from student view.

Use the SafeAssign Direct Submit tool

• Select the Teach tab in your Blackboard course site.
• Click the SafeAssign Direct Submit link/icon created/hidden in the preceding steps.
• Click the Submit papers button.
• The page refreshes. Choose whether the papers should be submitted as a draft or whether plagiarism checking should occur. You can choose one or neither of these two options. Click the Browse button to upload a file or zipped group of files.
• When done, click the Submit button.

View a Sample SafeAssign Report

The SafeAssign Report includes any suspected sources and full text of the paper. Click on a suspected source in the listing to hightlight the suspect text in the submitted paper.

Additional Resources