SafeAssign
Definition
SafeAssign is a Web-based plagiarism detection service. University of Minnesota instructors may access the service via a link in WebVista course sites. There are two ways to submit student work through this service. SafeAssign Assignment allows students to submit work themselves, while SafeAssign Direct Submit allows instructors to submit student work without their involvement.
Instructors can have their students submit written work to this service so it can be checked against different databases, including:
- a comprehensive online index of documents available for public access on the Internet
- the ProQuest ABI/INFORM® database with more than 1,100 publication titles and about 2.6 million articles from the 1990s to present time, updated weekly (exclusive access)
- institutional document archives containing all papers submitted to SafeAssign by users in their respective institutions, and
- the Global Reference Database, which contains papers that were volunteered by students from Blackboard® client institutions to help prevent cross-institutional plagiarism.
After student work is checked against the databases, SafeAssign produces an "Originality Report" that shows matching sequences of words in the submitted assignment, along with any matching sources and the percentage of matching words.
Educational Uses
Detecting plagiarism without electronic tools can be time consuming and laborious. SafeAssign is easy to use and enables instructors to compare student writing to other writing, both published and unpublished, more quickly and with greater thoroughness. However, using SafeAssign is only one among a variety of available strategies for preventing plagiarism. These include the following:
- Make it clear to your students that you will not tolerate plagiarism. Explain relevant University policies, academic standards of integrity, and legal issues. Whether you use the tool or not, include language about plagiarism in the syllabus.
- Discuss plagiarism as a moral and ethical issue.
- Critique a plagiarized paper in class, and show your students how to avoid plagiarism.
- Create writing assignments that are meaningful. Students are less likely to plagiarize if given "authentic" tasks.
- Create writing assignments that are specifically tailored to the course, and change writing assignments each time the course is offered.
- Writing assignments should compel students to focus on process as well as product; use SafeAssign in this context. Break up a paper assignment into a series of steps, and require students to turn in work related to the final paper as they develop their thoughts.
- Teach students how to correctly paraphrase, quote, and cite sources. Discuss the benefits of citing sources properly, and emphasize that command of the skills involved will strengthen their work.
Issues
Instructors should be aware of some issues when they use this type of technology for teaching and learning.
- Instructors should be knowledgeable about University policies related to dealing with plagiarism cases and make their students aware of these policies as well. See the Office for Student Academic Integrity site and the Student Conduct Code page on the Student Judicial Affairs site.
- Students may not understand what plagiarism is, despite carefully written University policies and standard language that appears on syllabi everywhere. Moreover, not all instructors agree on what constitutes plagiarism or policies governing academic integrity. Instructors should develop their understanding of these policies—including definitions of plagiarism—so they know their options should a case arise.
- Students may be accustomed to writing as a product, but may not understand writing as a process. Instructors should guide students through the writing process and make students aware of writing support resources available to them. See the Resources section below.
Resources
The following sources may help you use and teach with this type of technology.
Center for Writing
The center staff offers individualized writing instruction at no charge to University of Minnesota students and support for faculty members as they integrate writing into their courses.
Office for Student Conduct and Academic Integrity
Through this Web Site, instructors and students can learn more about academic integrity (definitions, policies, procedures), and instructors can find language to include in a syllabus.
Plagiarism
This page on the University's Center for Writing site offers several links to language about plagiarism, examples of plagiarism policies specific to colleges within the University, and advice on how to prevent plagiarism.
RefWorks
Refworks is a service from the University of Minnesota Libraries that enables students to create a database of citations and automatically build bibliographies in a required citation style.
SafeAssign—University of Minnesota
The WebVista Web site at the University of Minnesota has a page that provides an overview of SafeAssign and includes instructions on how to use and access the tool.
SafeAssign—Wiki
Blackboard has created a wiki on SafeAssign that provides resources for students and instructors.
Research
The following research literature has been published about the educational uses of this type of technology.
Bolkan, J. V. "Avoid the Plague: Tips and Tricks for Preventing and Detecting Plagiarism." Learning & Leading with Technology 33, no. 6 (March 2006): 10–13.
Bolkan makes a case for using a wide range of tools to prevent plagiarism. Among those advocated in the article are setting a tone for upholding academic honesty, creating specific assignments for students, and requiring that students show intermediary steps toward a completed work.
This article summarizes the June 2005 results of a study that examined cheating and plagiarism in 60 colleges and involved about 50,000 students. The researchers found that more than 70 percent of students admit to some cheating. The study also looked at the impact of honor codes on cheating and found that students on campuses that have honor codes are less likely to cheat.
Hunt, Russell. "Four Reasons to be Happy about Internet Plagiarism." Teaching Perspectives. St. Thomas University (December 2002). http://www.stthomasu.ca/~hunt/4reasons.htm.
Hunt argues that there are benefits to the current trends of increasing plagiarism. He invites instructors to view plagiarism in the electronic age as an opportunity to rethink educational practices we currently take for granted, including the research paper and traditional grading practices. Hunt argues that instructors now have the opportunity to reconsider "just how the intellectual enterprise of scholarship and research really works" and that instructors should respond to plagiarism by making a commitment to promoting significant learning.
Mahon, Robert. "Try the Guillotine." The Clearing House 79 (2006): 271–3.
In this provocative article Mahon advocates a zero-tolerance attitude about plagiarism and the adoption of a French system of justice that assumes "guilty until proven innocent." While many instructors may not be able to adopt this approach due to constraints of university policies, this article does offer much to ponder. The article could lead to further thinking about the relationship between teaching styles and approaches to dealing with plagiarism and offers some strategies for preventing plagiarism as well as dealing with cases should they arise.
