Safe Assignment

SafeAssignment is an automated plagiarism detection system designed to work in conjunction with myUSF (Blackboard). Every student paper submitted to myUSF (Blackboard) via this tool automatically undergoes a search through the Internet and a number of internal and external document databases for signs of plagiarism.

There are two ways in which you can have SafeAssignment check your student's documents: you can submit your students' documents to SafeAssignment or you can have your students submit the documents themselves.

1. Creating a SafeAssignment:
In both of the above two cases, you would have to first create a SafeAssignment item in your course in myUSF (Blackboard). You would do this as follows:

1. Log in to myUSF (Blackboard) at https://my.usf.edu using your netID and password.
2. Click the Courses tab.
3. Select the course in which you would like to create a SafeAssignment.
4. Click the Control Panel link.
5. In the Content Areas group, select the content area (and then the folder, if applicable) in which you would like to create the SafeAssignment.
6. In the Select drop-down menu (right side of the Add row), choose the SafeAssignment option.
7. Click the Go button.
8. Fill the form on the Add Safe Assignment page. This form will enable you to:
1. Add a Title to your assignment
2. Add the points possible
3. Add a text description of your assignment
4. Choose to make the assignment available or unavailable
5. Select dates to display after and until
6. Choose to make this a draft assignment
7. Allow or prevent students from viewing their assignment after submitting it. If you allow students to view the assignment, they will also be able to view the SafeAssignment report on matching content in their assignment
8. Allow or prevent students from resubmitting assignments
9. Request urgent checking (you will get a SafeAssignment report in approximately 15 minutes with urgent checking)
10. Create an announcement that will show up on the announcements page when the students access your course in myUSF.
9. Click Submit.
10. Your assignments will now be available to students to respond to as well as to you for bulk or single document uploads. SafeAssignment also adds the following text to your assignment description so that the student is aware that their submission will be subject to the SafeAssignment system (it is also recommended that you inform students of the use of SafeAssignment in your course syllabus): "The University of South Florida has an account with an automated plagiarism detection service which allows instructors to submit student assignments to be checked for plagiarism. Assignments are compared automatically against a variety of items in the Internet, and previously submitted papers. Material that may not be original is flagged and a matching score is calculated. The Instructor receives the matching score and a report."
2. Student - SafeAssignment View and Submission
1. A student would simply go to the new assignment in its respective content area in your course and click the View/Complete link below the assignment's description. They will then have the option to submit their assignment document and add some comments.
2. Once the student submits the assignment, they have the option to return to it later and see their results (if the instructor enables this option - refer step A.8.g.). A resubmittable assignment will also allow the student to submit an updated document with new comments.
3. Instructor - Adding Documents to a SafeAssignment

   If you would like to submit documents yourself to a SafeAssignment for plagiarism detection, you would:

1. Go to the Control Panel in your course.
2. In the Course Tools group, click the SafeAssignments link.
3. Click the Quick Submit link below the corresponding SafeAssignment to submit files.
4. You can submit files individually with comments or you could use a program such as EasyZip (http://www.thefreesite.com/easyzip111.htm) to zip several files up and submit them all at once.