SafeAssign Update

Blackboard has indicated that the SafeAssign central service successfully updated the system and fixed some problems within the past couple of days.

The Blackboard CE issue resolved is as follow:

• “On CE6/Vista, when Gradebook columns associated with a SafeAssign assignment were deleted, access to the SafeAssign assignment [is no longer] lost”

Blackboard further stated that “many SafeAssign users with open requests with Blackboard Support regarding SafeAssign should find that their issues are now resolved. We encourage users who have open SafeAssign issues to check whether or not they are still occurring and to update Blackboard Support on the results.”

Preparing for the New Semester Blackboard Caveats

The following caveats may save you some grief as you make final preparations for Spring 2008. Please read on.

1. If you attempt to copy content into a course shell for the new semester and it fails, don’t bother trying again. Our experience is that once a course shell copy fails, and subsequent attempts will also fail.
2. JCCC uses Banner integration and we have had problems with incomplete course rosters (failure of the enrollment synchronization process) for cross-listed courses in the past. To assure that you’re not bitten by this “bug” do the following. If you’re teaching a cross-listed course, log-in to MyJCCC (JCCC's Luminus portal), select the My Courses tab and print the roster for each of the cross-listed course sections. Then log-in to Blackboard, locate the cross-listed course on the My Blackboard screen (it should have a non-descript name such as “Cross-Listed Group 999 – Cross-Listed Group.” Enter the course (the link points to the parent course shell that should include all students in all sections of the cross-listed “child” sections of the course). Check that all students on the rosters from MyJCCC are included in the course Grade Book.
3. Remember, courses cannot be cross-listed after any student activity exists or that activity will be inaccessible.
4. If you’re using the SafeAssign tool in Blackboard, do not delete the Grade Book column associated with a SafeAssign assignment. If you do, the SafeAssign data for the associated SafeAssign assignment will no longer be accessible to users. Blackboard is working on a fix targeted for late January 2008, but for now, please do not delete columns in the Grade Book associated with SafeAssign.

Using SafeAssign, Blackboard's Plagiarism Prevention Tool

We’ve had problems using SafeAssign at JCCC since mid-September (e.g., the product was non-functional or exhibited very slow response times). Blackboard has since addressed the problems we’ve encountered and the Plagiarism Prevention “add-on” to Blackboard now appears to be working properly. For more details on SafeAssign, visit http://wiki.safeassign.com/display/SAFE/About+SafeAssign. If you want to try adding a SafeAssignment tool to your course, the following instructions will be useful.

Adding the Blackboard CE6 SafeAssign Tool to a Course

1. From the Build tab, click on the Add Content Link button on the Course Content Home page.
2. From the drop-down list select SafeAssign, then click on the Create SafeAssign button.
3. You then are given a blank window to name your link to the SafeAssign tool, such as "SafeAssign Assignments."
4. You then click on the Configure button to save the link to your Course Content Home page or Cancel to quit.

Creating SafeAssignment(s) in Blackboard CE6

1. From the Teach tab, click on the new link to SafeAssign on the Course Content Home page.
2. Click on the Create SafeAssignment button and fill in the Assignment specific information:
   a. Title: such as Writing Assignment 1
   b. Description: description of the assignment and optional instructions if needed.
   c. Due date: Submissions are accepted after this date
   d. Draft: Do you want to allow students to submit drafts. These drafts are not sent to your institution’s search database.
   e. Student Viewable: Let students view SafeAssignment reports on their papers only.
   f. Urgent Checking: To process urgently or not. There is a normal 2-3 minute or greater response time.
   g. Grading: Select numeric or Alphanumeric grading, this will create a column in the Blackboard CE Gradebook.
   h. Click Save at the bottom of the page to save this assignment or Cancel to quit.
3. Repeat Step 2 above for any additional SafeAssignments you wish to create.

How Students Use SafeAssign

1. The students are told to click on the SafeAssign tool link on the home page to submit their assignments for plagiarism checking.
2. They select which SafeAssignment they want to submit by clicking on the link to it under the Available Assignments area.
3. They click on the Browse button and find their paper on their local machine and click Open to upload it.
4. SafeAssign accepts Microsoft Word (.doc only), TXT, RTF, HTML, and PDF formats only. Word 2007 format documents are not yet supported.
5. Once submitted they can go back and check the SafeAssign report if you allow them to in Step 2e above.

Thanks to Jeff Kosko and Tracy Newman for composing this tip.