Creating a "Safe Assignment" in Blackboard

  1. Navigate to the location in your course where you would like to create the Safe Assignment.
  2. Click on the Create Assessment button and select SafeAssignment.

    If you do not see this option, turn on the SafeAssign tool by selecting Customization in the Control Panel and choosing Tool Availability. Browse for the SafeAssign tool and make sure "Available" is checked. Click "Submit".
    Create Assessment menu in Blackboard 9.1

    Note: If you select "Assignment" rather than "SafeAssignment", it will not include the plagiarism-checking functionality.
  3. Enter a name for the assignment, number of points possible, and specific instructions for the assignment.
    enter information
  4. There are a number of options in the "Enter Information" section.
    enter optional selections

    Carefully consider each of these (pay particular attention to "draft"), as described below:

    Safe Assignment Options
    Option Explanation
    Make the Assessment Available Select whether or not ("yes" or "no") you want the assignment to be available to students. If you select "yes", you can also specify display dates.
    Track Number of Views Select this checkbox if you want to track views of this item.
    Availability Dates Use the "Display After" option to "hide" the assignment from students until a specific date and time. You must click the checkbox first, then choose the time and date after which you would like students to view the assignment. If you want to enforce a deadline for assignment submission, enter a date and time in the "Display Until" field.
    Draft

    SafeAssign enables you to create a "draft" assignment so students can submit a document to be checked for "originality". If an assignment is submitted as a draft, it receives an originality report, but it is not added to the database (if it were, the final version would result in a 100% match).

    Creating the assignment as a draft allows SafeAssign to be used as a teaching tool, giving the student an idea of how original his or her work is and allowing him/her to revise the document. This allows students to improve their citations and paraphrasing techniques.

    However, the "originality report" can also allow students to see if a plagiarized work can elude detection.

    Important: If you create the assignment as a draft, you must create a second version to allow students to submit a final document (the version that will be graded).

    Urgent Checking This area will usually be set to "No". Most originality reports are returned within 15 to 30 mintues after submission. If you want the report returned as soon as possible, select "Yes" for Urgent Checking.
    Student Viewable If you use SafeAssign as a teaching tool (to identify citation and paraphrasing problems, etc.), you want students to be able to view originality reports. After you view the originality report, you can always submit the report to students.

  5. There is an Optional Announcement section, where you can type in an announcement to appear in the Announcements section of the course. This lets students know that the new Safe Assignment is available. If you want to send an announcement, select the "Yes" radio button, type in a subject heading, and add text for the announcement.
  6. After you have completed your selections, click the Submit button at the bottom of the page.
  7. Blackboard will return a confirmation message that the Safe Assignment was successfully added to the course. Click the"OK" button to return to the previous location.

Next>> Viewing Originality Reports

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