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About SafeAssign
SafeAssign is used to promote originality and to create opportunities to help students identify how to properly attribute sources rather than paraphrase. It compares submitted assignments against a set of academic papers to identify areas of overlap between the submitted assignment and existing works. SafeAssign is effective as both a deterrent and an educational tool. Instructors can use SafeAssign to investigate plagiarism potential in assignment submissions. If allowed by instructors, students can review their own work for plagiarism potential.
New Originality Report available for SafeAssign integration
Blackboard Learn 9.1 Q2 2019
We've updated the design of the SafeAssign Originality Report in Blackboard Learn 9.1 environments. The new Originality Report uses Blackboard's Ultra design philosophy and includes some new information about a submission's overall risk for being copied from another source. This new report interface is also more responsive for mobile devices and more accessible to screen readers than the old design; we will be seeking VPAT compliance for this new design soon!
This release also allows the SafeAssign team to be more iterative and provide updates to the new report design on a more regular basis and without requiring an update to the LMS platform. We'll still be communicating changes on the SafeAssign help pages, so make sure to follow those pages as well for new information!
Users can switch back to the old Originality Report design for a little while longer to help ease the transition.
SafeAssign Originality Report redesign
Available for Moodle and Blackboard Open LMS | Released 20 September 2018
We've updated the design of the SafeAssign Originality Report in all Moodle and Blackboard Open LMS environments. The new Originality Report uses Blackboard's Ultra design philosophy and includes some new information about a submission's overall risk for being copied from another source. This new report interface is also more responsive for mobile devices and more accessible to screen readers than the old design; we will be seeking VPAT compliance for this new design soon! This release also allows the SafeAssign team to be more iterative and provide updates to the new report design on a more regular basis and without requiring an update to the LMS platform. We'll still be communicating changes on the SafeAssign help pages, so make sure to follow those pages as well for new information!
Users can switch back to the old Originality Report design for a little while longer to help ease the transition.
Blackboard Learn users can expect an update for Learn that contains the new Originality Report design soon!
SafeAssign 4.0.20
Available in Blackboard Learn 9.1 Q2 2016 CU5 | Released 11 April 2017
Available in Blackboard Learn 9.1 Q4 2016 CU4 | Released 18 October 2017
Resolved Issues & Improvements
This release includes updates allowing users to create and update the SafeAssign configuration properties for their Learn instance; this should help potential alleviate issues when migrating, upgrading, or copying Learn instances, and allow users to resolve discrepancies without requiring command line access to the sa.properties file.
Known Issues
After upgrading to a new Cumulative Update containing SafeAssign B2 4.0.20, some instances reported an error when accessing SafeAssign. At this time, the affected release is Cumulative Update 5 for Learn 9.1, Q2 2016.
Visit Behind the Blackboard for more info on this issue and workaround.
Release Notes for Earlier Versions
Release notes for earlier versions are available in English only.
Releases compatible with Blackboard Learn 9.1 April 2014 and later
Releases compatible with Blackboard Learn 9.1 SP14 and earlier
Release Note Categories
Central Service
SafeAssign is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that is deployed in Amazon Web Services (AWS). In the release notes, we refer to the SafeAssign software and hardware housed in AWS as the Central Service. The Central Service provides the document conversion, storage, and originality analysis, and serves up the Originality Report interface for all SafeAssign users.
The Central Service is a single version for all users, meaning that most updates to the Central Service apply to all customers equally and at the same time. There may be functionality or occasions where some updates are available only to certain customers. In these cases, we will explain exceptions in the release notes for the Central Service, Originality Report, or respective Integrations.
Originality Report
The SafeAssign Originality Report is the primary user interface for all users. The Originality Report is served by the Central Service and can be updated without requiring a update to users' LMS. This allows bug fixes and point updates to be provided in an agile nature and helps Blackboard provide the highest quality experience to all users regardless of LMS or integration.
Integrations
User documents are data provided to the SafeAssign Central Service through integration with the LMS. Currently, we offer integrations with Blackboard Learn and Moodle. The Blackboard Learn integration is created through a building block and the Moodle integration is created through a plugin. Blackboard maintains these integrations on behalf of our clients.
The integrations may be updated independently or in conjunction with Originality Report and/or Central Service updates. In these cases, we will explain updates for the relevant areas of the service in the release notes .
