Tech Tip Tuesday - SafeAssign Part 1 - Direct Submit

We have had many questions, all of a sudden, regarding SafeAssign, what it is and how to use it.

First to note, it is a computer generated plagiarism detection tool.  It should be viewed as a learning tool and not necessarily a punishment tool.

The report that submitting a paper will generate is up for interpretation and is not the end all be all.

You can read in more detail about SafeAssign and how reports are generated here.

There are two ways to use SafeAssign.

1. Submitting a paper as an instructor that you suspect for plagiarism.
2. Creating SafeAssignments within your modules where students submit their papers.

Part 1 in our series on SafeAssign is the Direct Submit.  

Direct Submit is what only instructors can do if they have a suspect paper.

Pros:

• Instructor control
• Can submit one at a time or several at once to add to the Institutional Database

Cons: 

• Papers uploaded through Direct Submit are only added to the Institutional Database - there is no option to add them to the Global Reference Database since students have to opt in on a paper by paper basis.
• No Grade book Integration
• It is not recommended that files be deleted from Direct Submit, as this will remove them from the Institutional Database.

Directions of How to Direct Submit A Paper: (Video Tutorial on how to Direct Submit)

1. From the control panel, click SafeAssign under Course Tools.
2. Click the Direct Submit Link
3. A list of folders and papers may appear.  This list includes papers already uploaded through Direct Submit on your account.
4. Click Submit Papers.
5. Select Upload File and browse for the file.  You can also copy and paste a paper in the given box
6. Other Options:

• Submit as Draft: A SafeAssign report will be generated however the paper will not be added to the institutional database and will not be used to check other papers.
• Skip Plagiarism Checking: Adds the papers to the Institutional Database without checking for content copied from other sources.  This is useful if the Instructor wants to upload papers from an earlier course to ensure that current students are not reusing work.

Limitations:

• Papers with over 5000 sentences or that are more than 10 MB in size cannot be submitted.
• If papers being submitted include images, the images must not exceed 2 MB or the submission may fail.

Types of Files Formats Accepted:

• Microsoft Word Document: .doc
• Rich Text Format: .rtf
• HTML: .htm or .html
• Text: .txt
• PDF: .pdf
• Zip compressed: .ZIP used to upload multiple files

Next Week: Part 2 - Creating SafeAssignments

Following Week: Part 3 - Reading the SafeAssign Report