SafeAssign is a tool now included as part of the Blackboard Vista course management system. The purpose of this tool is to assist faculty (and students) with plagiarism. When an assignment is submitted through SafeAssign the validity of it is checked against several databases. Proper citation is also correct. Having students submit drafts of papers can help call attention to particular issues of validity which may not be clear initially to the student. In this Internet Age proper citation is not always clear.
SafeAssign also protects the originality of a work benefitting both faculty and students.

SafeAssign generates reports indicating potential problem areas within a work.
 

SafeAssign checks all submitted papers against the following databases:

• Internet - comprehensive index of documents available for public access on the Internet
• ProQuest ABI/Inform database with over 1,100 publication titles and about 2.6 million articles from '90s to present time, updated weekly (exclusive access).  This only includes the Business section of the Proquest database.
• Institutional document archives containing all papers submitted to SafeAssign by users in their respective institutions
• Global Reference Database containing papers that were volunteered by students from Blackboard client institutions to help prevent cross-institutional plagiarism.

Direct Submit generates SafeAssign reports on papers submitted outside of a SafeAssignment.

PLEASE NOTE: Papers uploaded through Direct Submit are only added to the Institutional Database - there is no option to add them to the Global Reference Database since students have to opt-in on a paper-by-paper basis. Additionally, there is no Gradebook integration with papers submitted through Direct Submit. So because Direct Submit does not offer access to the Global Reference Database or integration with Gradebook, instructors should set up and use SafeAssignments to collect submissions whenever possible.