SafeAssign originality reports provide detailed information about the matches found between a submitted paper and existing sources. The SafeAssign report identifies all matching blocks of text. You and your students need to investigate whether the matching text is properly referenced. Detailing each match prevents detection errors due to differences in citing standards.
SafeAssign reports are divided into three sections:
Report Information
This section lists data about the paper, such as the author, percent of matching text, and when it was submitted. This section also includes options for downloading the report, emailing the report, or viewing a printable version. The printable version is the most effective view of the report for users that rely on assistive technology to access Blackboard Learn.
Citations
This section lists the sources that have text that matches the text of the submitted paper. You can select sources, exclude them from the review, and process the paper again. This is useful if you find that the flagged text was actually properly quoted and cited, or if the flagged text is the reference section of the paper. Processing the paper again generates a new value for the percent matching without using the excluded sources.
Manuscript Text
The left side of the report displays the student's submitted assignment. Each matching block of text are highlighted in a different color. SafeAssign has the capability of locating up to 30 different sources within one submission. Clicking on a block of text opens up a window that displays the student's text side-by-side with the suspected source, a hyperlink to that source, and a probability percentage that the student's text was copied from the source.
Sentence matching scores represent the percentage probability that two phrases have the same meaning. This number reflects the reciprocal to the probability that these two phrases are similar by chance. For example, a score of 90 percent means that there is a 90 percent probability that these two phrases are the same. There is a 10 percent probability that they are similar by chance and not because the submitted paper includes content from the existing source (whether appropriately attributed or not).
The overall SafeAssign score indicates the probability that the submitted paper contains matches to existing sources. This score is a warning indicator only. Review papers to see if the matches are properly attributed.
Scores below 15 percent: These papers typically include some quotes and a 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 plagiarism.
Scores between 15 percent and 40 percent: These papers include extensive quoted or paraphrased material or they include plagiarism. Review these papers to determine if the matching content is properly attributed.
Scores over 40 percent: There is a very high probability that text in these papers was copied from other sources. These papers include quoted or paraphrased text in excess and need to be reviewed for plagiarism.
To request help related to this article, please see our Service Catalog.