Using SafeAssign and DirectSubmit in OLIVE

Transcription

1 About SafeAssign Using SafeAssign and DirectSubmit in OLIVE SafeAssign compares submitted assignments against a set of academic papers to identify areas of overlap between the submitted assignment and existing works. SafeAssign can be used to prevent plagiarism. SafeAssign is effective as both a deterrent and an educational tool. How SafeAssignments Work SafeAssign is based on a unique text matching algorithm capable of detecting exact and inexact matching between a paper and source material. SafeAssignments are compared against several different databases, including: 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 1990s to present time, updated weekly (exclusive access) Institutional document archives contains all papers submitted to SafeAssign by users in their respective institutions Interpreting SafeAssign Scores Sentence matching scores represent 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% means that there is a 90% probability that these two phrases are the same and a 10% 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%: 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% and 40%: 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%: 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. The information above is extracted from Blackboard Learn, version 9.1, SafeAssign Instructor Guide Learning Academy 1 Last updated on Jan 2015

2 Scenario: Using SafeAssign and DirectSubmit in OLIVE You would personally like to check for plagiarism in students papers instead of letting them check on their own and submitting the report to you. For this workflow, we assume you have Instructor rights to the course site as you will need to access the Control Panel. 1. In the Control Panel, click on Course Tools. Then click on SafeAssign to go to the SafeAssign page. 2. Click on the DirectSubmit title to go to the Private Direct Submit page. Then click on Submit a Paper. 3. Check Submit as draft to ensure the submitted documents are not added to the TP database. This is to prevent any document from being matched against itself, if it is submitted for checking a second time. If Submit as draft is not checked, the second submission of the same document will result in an almost 100% match. Learning Academy 2 Last updated on Jan 2015

3 4. Click on the Choose File button to select the file you want to check. Note the acceptable formats listed below the button. 5. This opens the Windows explorer for you to select the document you want to check. 6. Click Submit to begin the uploading process. Read the warning carefully! Learning Academy 3 Last updated on Jan 2015

4 7. After the document is uploaded to the SafeAssign server, it is checked against data from the Internet, ProQuest ABI/Inform database and Institutional document archives (see Page 1). After the screen shown below appears with the Matching and SA Report columns empty, you may navigate to another page in your subject site to continue work. The checking process per document will take some time. Come back to this page later to check if SafeAssign has completed the task. **Important Note: The SafeAssign server is an external server belonging to the company that developed SafeAssign. It is NOT a server in TP. As such, the uploaded document will be put in the queue with other documents that have been submitted by other users (world-wide) of this service. In view of this workflow, the result of the check will depend on the number of documents being processed at that point in time. You may see the results only on the following day or even later. 8. When the checking is completed, the results will be shown under the Matching and SA Report columns. Click on the tick in the SA Report column to check the details. Learning Academy 4 Last updated on Jan 2015

5 9. The panel shown below gives you an overview of the results. The percentage shown is NOT an indication of the amount of plagiarism by the student. It is merely an indication of the amount of text in the submitted document that matches other documents. The document will still have to be assessed individually as things like quotations that have been included in a document will be matched and highlighted as well. The percentage of the text that matches the text found in other documents. The text that match other documents are numbered and colour coded. The links to the sources are also provided. 10. After the overview panel, you will find the text numbered and highlighted. 11. Click on the highlighted text to reveal the text that match or re-phrased from the source. Learning Academy 5 Last updated on Jan 2015

6 12. If you find that the matching text is not a case of plagiarism, un-check the highlighter in the panel and click on the Select Sources & Resubmit button. Then click on Resubmit. Un-check the highlighters of the text that you consider are not cases of plagiarism and resubmit the whole document for checking. 13. As mentioned earlier, the checking process per document will take some time. Come back to this page later to check if SafeAssign has completed the task. Extra Resources and Reading: Learning Academy 6 Last updated on Jan 2015