1. SafeAssign & Plagiarism Prevention
Elizabeth Kimbell
Communication Instructor
Ghanashyam (Sam) Sharma
Ph.D. Fellow in Rhetoric & Composition

2. Introduction Elizabeth Kimbell Shyam Sharma
Communication Instructor at UofL since 1999
Online instructor since 2004
Piloted and used SafeAssign since Summer ’08
Shyam Sharma
Faculty in English at Tribhuvan University of Nepal
Consultant, UofL Writing Center-2006; Assistant Director-2007

3. Overview of SafeAssign Preventing Plagiarism through Pedagogy
Agenda
Overview of SafeAssign
Preventing Plagiarism through Pedagogy
Why SafeAssign is not sufficient in itself
Integrating Pedagogy and SafeAssign
Using SafeAssign
Conclusions and Questions
Hands-On Lab

4. Overview of SafeAssign

5. Plagiarism Statistics
From plagiarism.org:
In U.S. News and World Report surveys
80% of "high-achieving" high school students admit to cheating
75% of college students admitted cheating, and 90% of college students didn't believe cheaters would be caught
Almost 85% of college students said cheating was necessary to get ahead
In a sample of 1,800 students at nine state universities:
84% admitted to cheating on written assignments
52% had copied a few sentences from a website w/o citing the source
Reference data at plagiarism.org :
While the data presented here comes from a company that sells plagiarism detection services, the findings are very similar wherever you look. Data from various sources I present at Camp Delphi in a session about academic dishonesty is almost a match.

6. Plagiarism Prevention Timeline
2004: initial efforts
: negotiations with TurnItIn (failed)
2007: Blackboard acquires SafeAssignment
2008
Spring: Provost agrees to terms for deployment
Summer: training delivered to pilot group
Fall: Formal SafeAssign trainings conducted
Where are we now? (some controversy)

7. It is delivered by Blackboard at no additional cost to the institution
What is
SafeAssign is a plagiarism prevention service integrated with the Blackboard Learning System™
It is delivered by Blackboard at no additional cost to the institution
It uses an originality detection algorithm to run a comparison of submitted papers across a large collection of databases
From

8. SafeAssign compares submitted papers to:
What does check?
SafeAssign compares submitted papers to:
Internet
Index of billions of documents available to public
ProQuest ABI/Inform database
Millions of articles, updated weekly, many in full-text
Institutional Database
Papers submitted by users from UofL
Global Reference Database
Papers that were volunteered by students at other institutions (on Blackboard’s central database)

9. Integrating SafeAssign with Pedagogy

10. SafeAssign is not Enough
SafeAssign cannot replace faculty judgment
SA report does not prove that student plagiarized work
SA won’t detect all forms of plagiarism
SafeAssign can be used for creating teaching opportunities
It must be used as a pedagogical tool
SafeAssign in the context of pedagogy; pedagogy in the context of SafeAssign.
Technical reason as to why SA is not sufficient on its own.

11. Plagiarism is not the only form of academic dishonesty
What is Plagiarism?
UofL defines plagiarism as "representing the words or ideas of someone else as one’s own in any academic exercise” – Undergraduate Catalog
Plagiarism should be discussed as a negative standard for learning essential skills
Plagiarism is not the only form of academic dishonesty
and the fact that plagiarism is just one of the many forms of academic dishonesty makes SafeAssign more of a specific tool rather than a replacement of any pedagogical responsibility

12. Plagiarism as a Form of Academic Dishonesty
Acts of academic dishonest include:
Plagiarism: "representing the words or ideas of someone else as one's own"
Cheating: getting credit by deceptive means
Fabrication: making up information
Falsification: altering information/records
Multiple Submission: using the same work to receive multiple instance of credit
Complicity in any of the forms of academic dishonesty above
Undergraduate Catalog
It is necessary to locate plagiarism in the larger context of academic dishonesty/problems and the academic standards that we strive to maintain. Such a view helps us discuss academic rigor against plagiarism as well as against these other challenges.

13. Intentional and Unintentional Plagiarism
Potluck paper
Forgotten footnote
Source mismatch
Perfect crime
Consumerism
Ghost writing
Self-stealing
Labor of laziness
UNINTENTIONAL
Mixing up notes & sources
“Common” knowledge
Incorrect citation or style
Improper paraphrasing
Cultural background
Professional differences
Misunderstood expectation
Practical reason: Plagiarism is subtle/complex, and it takes multiple forms.
Potluck paper: creates a patchwork and tweaks sentences to fit together
Forgotten footnote: leaves out bibliographic entry
Misinforming: provides inaccurate information of sources (making it harder to find sources)
Perfect crime: cites sources but continues to borrow ideas
Consumerism: buys a paper from a commercial site
Ghost writing: submits a paper written by another student
Self-stealing: borrows generously from one’s own previous work
Labor of laziness: spends as much time paraphrasing as for writing an original paper
UNINTENTIONAL: call for better teaching or needs support
Mixing up notes: solution = cite while you write & document every source as you find it
Facts/sources: solution = teacher needs to discuss this issue
Incorrect citation: e.g. = parenthetical citation in the wrong place
Incorrect style: e.g. = APA style paraphrase can look like insufficient acknowledgment in MLA
Improper paraphrase: can look like misinforming
Cultural, academic, and professional backgrounds influence students’ view of plagiarism/honesty
Misunderstood expectation: “conduct online research addressing the following questions...” (a student copy-pastes texts and url addresses, and says that she understood “online research” as what she did)

14. Activity 1 Discuss and share how you would deal with the
following cases of (possible) plagiarism:
A student continues to use ideas from a source after proper citations
A student turns in a recycled paper written for another class (with minor changes)
A student has rephrased words from a source such that SafeAssign doesn’t show lengthy blocks of matched text
A student has used lecture notes without citing source
Before moving on to solutions—how would you deal with these situations?
Answers?
Perfect crime? For undergraduates, most likely reflects poor understanding of rules of citation.
Multiple submission: teachers differ
Labor of Laziness. SafeAssign won’t report this. Only you can judge.
Gray area? Citation styles are not exactly clear about issues like citing lectures
These cases further demonstrate that a technological tool is not sufficient in itself to deal with more complex/subtle problems of plagiarism.

15. Preventing Plagiarism through Pedagogy
Syllabus
Assignment Design
Teaching: process-based view of writing
Teaching: research skills
SOLUTIONS
Pedagogical strategies for helping students write and research better don’t necessarily demand a lot of time
No one will be able to use all or even many of the suggestions presented here; the point is to adapt, or at least be conscious of how different pedagogical approaches can make the difference.
Syllabus: Communicating the right message about plagiarism
Assignment: Designing it in ways that emphasize the motivation to learn
Writing Process: The awareness makes a difference
Research Skills: Makes sense if we consider that we are demanding increasingly complex skills—plus the development of new technology complicates our conventions and standards.

16. Syllabus: The Plagiarism Section
Communicate your expectations about intellectual honesty and rigor
Highlight intrinsic motivation (the desire to learn research skills), besides giving the regular warning against plagiarism
(removed while condensing; 2 points must be added here).
See additional notes on Syllabus
Interaction about the syllabus section (before next slide)

17. Syllabus: A Critical View of Plagiarism
Plagiarism should be avoided not only because it is seriously penalized but also because it shortchanges your opportunities for academic and professional development. Proper use of sources by using appropriate academic conventions is one of the important standards I expect you to maintain and further develop in this course. If you have any doubts about plagiarism, consult me.
How we communicate our policy/expectation regarding plagiarism makes a difference.

18. Syllabus: Integrating SafeAssign
If you intend to use SafeAssign in your course, you must:
Include university language about plagiarism prevention from Undergraduate Catalog (section 14)
State how you intend to use SafeAssign, specifying whether you will accept alternative submission
This is the agreement between Provost and University Counsel. (ALW)

19. Assignment Design Specific Process-based Integrated Challenging
Engaging
See handout

20. Teaching: Using Process-Based View of Research and Writing
Conducting preliminary research/reading
Selecting a topic
Preparing a working bibliography
Drafting research questions
Developing a working thesis (or hypothesis)
Creating an outline
Writing the first draft
Revising, editing, and proofreading
Producing the final draft
Writing a reflection of the process
Simple reflection: write on the back of your draft what you think you have done well and what you would like to work on in your future research paper
Which of these are essential? Outside of English department, won’t use all.

21. Teaching: Supporting Students with New Research Skills
If you are demanding more complex research skills than students already have,
Either teach those new skills, or
Encourage students to use available resources:
The Library
Research librarians
The Writing Center
Tools that the University makes available
Databases accessible through the library
ask students to show you evidence: have them write/tell how they found their sources, preferably orally and by turns in class, which helps them learn from peers.

22. Using SafeAssign

23. SafeAssign may be used in two primary ways
Modes of Use
SafeAssign may be used in two primary ways
Creating SafeAssignments
Like a regular Assignment in Blackboard that routes student submissions through plagiarism service
Direct Submit
Faculty may directly upload papers
Recommend using draft mode to give students a chance to see matching report before a final submission.
Direct Submit is good for bulk uploads of your own papers or papers from previous semesters. Can just upload with generating matching report.

24. Demonstration
Easier to show in actual system

25. Creating a SafeAssignment
From Control Panel, enter a content area (typically Assignments)

26. Creating a SafeAssignment
Select SafeAssign from the drop-down menu in toolbar, then click Go

27. Creating a SafeAssignment
Enter Information - Draft mode example
Name, Points Possible, Instructions, Available, Availability Dates are just like regular BB Assignments
Draft – Submitted papers WILL NOT be stored in any database
Student Viewable – Student will be able to see matching report
Urgent Checking – Gives priority to processing of reports. Probably won’t see much difference. Most reports are returned within 5 minutes. If longer than 30 minutes, report to Delphi as likely means a problem.

28. Creating a SafeAssignment
Optional Announcement - Draft mode example
Click Submit at bottom of page
Create, Subject, Message are like regular BB Assignments

29. Creating a SafeAssignment
Enter Information – Normal mode example
Name, Points Possible, Instructions, Available, Availability Dates are just like regular BB Assignments
Draft – Submitted papers WILL NOT be stored in any database
Student Viewable – Student will be able to see matching report
Urgent Checking – Gives priority to processing of reports. Probably won’t see much difference. Most reports are returned within 5 minutes. If longer than 30 minutes, report to Delphi as likely means a problem.

30. Student View of SafeAssignment
From Assignments, choose View/Complete

31. Student View of SafeAssignment
Draft mode example
Note, system adds Terms of Use statement (not editable) and begins with institution’s release statement text (editable). We’ve chosen to repeat the language from the Undergraduate Catalog. Ends with note about supported files types (not editable).
Comments: Student adds comments about paper here. Don’t put text of paper here! It must be attached.
File to Attach: This is where student selects their paper to be uploaded.

32. Instructor View of SafeAssignments
Instructors may view SafeAssignment matching reports in two ways
From SafeAssign in Control Panel
From Grade Center in Control panel

33. Instructor View of SafeAssignments
From SafeAssign in Control Panel

34. Instructor View of SafeAssignments
From SafeAssign in Control Panel
Choose View
If you make a Course Copy, you’ll need to synch once before use.
Course copies require resyncing. Solves most problems.

35. Instructor View of SafeAssignments
From SafeAssign in Control Panel
From this view, see all submissions for this SafeAssignment
Text: See raw text of paper used for matching. Limited formatting.
File: Paperclip icon should allow download of individual paper submitted (not matching report). Currently broken on our system. Use Download button above to download all in ZIP archive.
Matching: Percent of text found elsewhere. Again, must still use judgment to assess if represents plagiarism.
SA Report: Click on checkmark icon to open full matching report.
Clear Attempt: Click this to allow student to submit again (as long as SafeAssignment still available in content area). Use if student uploads wrong file or forgot to attach file.

36. Instructor View of SafeAssignments
From Grade Center in Control Panel

37. Instructor View of SafeAssignments
From Grade Center in Control Panel
Click on exclamation point to get to each student’s assignment.

38. Instructor View of SafeAssignments
From Grade Center in Control Panel
Text: See raw text of paper used for matching. Limited formatting.
File: Paperclip icon should allow download of individual paper submitted (not matching report). Currently broken on our system.
Matching: Percent of text found elsewhere. Again, must still use judgment to assess if represents plagiarism.
SA Report: Click on checkmark icon to open full matching report.
Clear Attempt: Click this to allow student to submit again (as long as SafeAssignment still available in content area). Use if student uploads wrong file or forgot to attach file.
Grade: Enter grade for this student’s paper here.
Comments: Provide feedback to student in this text box.
File To Attach: May also upload a file for student to review. For example, marked up version of the paper using Track Changes in Word.

39. Instructors may use Direct Submit to directly upload papers Two modes
Using Direct Submit
Instructors may use Direct Submit to directly upload papers
Two modes
Shared
Shared folders are accessible to anyone that can access Direct Submit for a course (other instructors and teaching assistants, for example)
Private
Private folders are only accessible by the instructor and may be accessed from any course in Blackboard in which you are designated as an instructor

40. Using Direct Submit
Access Direct Submit from SafeAssign in Control Panel

41. Using Matching Report Paper Information
Owner/Author: Owner if DirectSubmit. Author if from SafeAssignment.
Matching: Percent of text found elsewhere. Again, must still use judgment to assess if represents plagiarism.
Paper ID: Unique identifier used by Blackboard. Should provide if reporting problem about a submission.

42. Using Matching Report Suspected Sources
Will have Submission Comment section, too, if from SafeAssignment instead of Direct Submit.
Suspected sources lists numbered sources for matching text. Note, these are the first place in the databases where a match was found. Not necessarily the only source for commonly repeated. Wikipedia, for example, often note listed as source because matches elsewhere first. If want to re-process paper with a particular source, select checkbox and click on Re-process icon.
Can select Highlight All or magnifying glass icon to right of particular source to highlight that text in different colors.

43. Using Matching Report Paper Text
Matching text will be highlighted and numbers will indicate suspected source for match.
Clicking on any matching text will be up side-by-side comparison.

44. Using Matching Report Paper Text
Matching text will be highlighted and numbers will indicate suspected source for match.
Clicking on any matching text will be up side-by-side comparison.
Can follow link back to suspected source. If paper from database, will say so. Instructors will see author/owner and be able to pull up entire paper. Students will not.

45. Conclusions
Be sure to add explicit statement about use of SafeAssign to your syllabus
Goal is to prevent plagiarism by using SafeAssign in tandem with effective pedagogy
Syllabus
Assignment Design
Teaching Strategies
Faculty must still use judgment to assess
SafeAssign report does not prove that student plagiarized work

46. Reflections and Questions
Share any pedagogical strategies for preventing plagiarism that you use in your own classes.
Describe how you might incorporate SafeAssign and teaching ideas covered today into your classes.
Any Questions for us?

47. SafeAssign & Plagiarism Prevention
Elizabeth Kimbell
Communication Instructor
Ghanashyam (Sam) Sharma
Ph.D. Fellow in Rhetoric & Composition

48. Catalog Statement From current Undergraduate Catalog
“Plagiarism Prevention: Instructors may use a range of strategies (including plagiarism-prevention software at the university) to compare student works with private and public information resources in order to identify possible plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Comparisons of student works may require submitting a copy of the original work to the plagiarism-prevention service. The service may retain that copy in some circumstances.  Academic units or programs may establish a more rigorous standard of review or consent, which will be noted in the relevant guidelines.”
It took months of negotiations to get agreement on this language from University Counsel, the Provost, and Deans!

49. Also, check out Blackboard’s site: http://www.safeassign.com/
Resources
Delphi is building resources for SafeAssign:
Includes:
Overview documents for students and faculty
Step-by-Step directions for creating a SafeAssignment
Step-by-Step directions for using Direct Submit
Also, check out Blackboard’s site:
Has manuals, how to’s, FAQs, and more!

50. SOURCES
Alice Robison: “Designing Assignments to Discourage Plagiarism,”
Council of Writing Program Administrators: “Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices”:
James E. Porter: “Discourage Plagiarism by Promoting Academic Honesty: A Proactive Approach for Teachers,”
Karen McClaskey: “Prevent Plagiarism with Creative Assignments: Ideas for Faculty”:

51. SOURCES Plagiarism.org: www.plagiarism.org
Robert Harris: “Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers,”
Tammy Kempfert: “Beating eCheating: Strategies for Discouraging Internet Plagiarism,”
UofL Undergraduate Catalog:
U of Carnegie Mellon: “Plagiarism and the Web”:
Wikipedia: