blackboard plagiarism checker

blackboard plagiarism checker

The Importance of Using a Blackboard Plagiarism Checker

1. Introduction

A long time ago, writing down our thoughts, ideas, and solutions often involved shuffling through a pile of paper trying not to misplace any of them. Today, writing has been made a lot easier with word processing software such as Microsoft Word. We can now jot down our thoughts and ideas into the computer, which automatically saves them. Editing is made easier with the use of the copy and paste tool. However, in the age of information technology, a lot of useful information can be found on the internet. Often, we could easily “copy and paste” information into our documents without realizing it. One likely reason for this is that the information that was copied and pasted was useful and well-written. But there are instances where we forget to mention where we got that information. If someone else reads the document and recognizes it as plagiarized work, it can be quite embarrassing for us.

Academic integrity has been one of the hottest topics in schools today, and with the rise of the digital era, it is quite harder to detect plagiarized contents by students. In fact, there is a high rate of plagiarism that ranges from 40-63 percent of students doing it. Also, a study showed that up to 70 percent of college students have been involved in some forms of plagiarism due to the lenient comments on what constitutes plagiarism. They believed that the widespread lack of understanding about what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. This is due to the ease of copying and pasting information from the internet.

2. Benefits of a Blackboard Plagiarism Checker

The specific checker available to Nottingham Trent University students was used as a source of data for this study. The results of the questionnaire show high usage of the check, with 89.7% stating they use it and 81.4% stating they find it helpful. This data is supported by the 96.6% of students who believe using the plagiarism service is important. With the detection of plagiarism becoming easier for markers, students seem to be more aware of taking preventative measures. 82.6% of all here, ranging from international students to those studying PhDs, believe that there should be more emphasis placed on the use of the plagiarism check in order to reduce incidences of academic misconduct. With company and government funding often tied to academic output and league table rankings, it is important for any instance of plagiarism to be detected in order to maintain the integrity of the university. One common theme of written advice to students is that by using the originality reports, they may find errors in their referencing. Some markers may disregard a copied reference as a formatting error, cliché or an idiom, and mistakes can easily be made when cross-referencing between electronic and paper source material. By comparing a reference against its original source, students can hope to avoid any accusations of intention to deceive. It is also common for students to write drafts of coursework and essays that will not definitely not be marked if there is suspicion of plagiarism. By checking their work in advance, students can be sure that there will be no issues when submitting their work. An important benefit for international students in particular is that the plagiarism check can help them to understand paraphrasing and word choice in English written work. At Nottingham Trent, 11% of students are international and it is easy to assume that replacing words within a sentence will negate the possibility of plagiarism since the copied text is not directly adjacent to the original. PREVEA research indicates that students who are unsure of manual and automatic detection techniques are more likely to plagiarize. By checking their work, they can gain some understanding into the way in which detection software classifies their work as copied and avoid these forms of plagiarism in the future.

3. How to Use a Blackboard Plagiarism Checker

5. Students go to the content area linked to the assignment and click on the View/Complete link. A new window opens so that students can upload a file from their computer. When the file is submitted, SafeAssign creates a digital fingerprint of the content and checks it against the SafeAssign database.

4. On the ‘Submit SafeAssignments’ page, students will be able to submit their own assignments to the SafeAssignment. Students can submit a file at any time before the due date. However, once they have submitted a draft to the plagiarism checker, it can take up to 24 hours to receive the Originality Report, and during this time resubmission is not recommended. On the due date, students can no longer submit to the plagiarism checker.

3. Click on the SafeAssignments link to open the SafeAssignments page, and then either ‘Edit Assignment’ on an existing assignment that you want to add the plagiarism checker to, or ‘Create Safe Assignment’ to make a new assignment specifically for this purpose. When creating the Safe Assignment, under ‘Plagiarism Detection,’ choose ‘Use SafeAssign Direct Source Comparison’ to enable students to check their own work.

2. From the Control Panel, go to the Course Tools section and click on SafeAssign.

1. Enroll in the Plagiarism Checker program. You need to have a staff role on your unit (e.g., lecturer, tutor, unit administrator) to access the plagiarism checker. Students do not have direct access to the plagiarism checker but can ask other staff to check unit materials on their behalf.

To use the plagiarism checker, follow these steps:

4. Limitations of a Blackboard Plagiarism Checker

An additional problem with detection systems is that they do not address the underlying causes of plagiarism. A system that focuses solely on catching and punishing plagiarists does little to support academic integrity as a positive value. This is not to say that the prevention of plagiarism is not an important goal, but it is one that may be better accomplished by fostering an environment in which academic integrity is highly valued and supported by teaching and learning strategies that help students develop critical thinking, information literacy, and proper writing and citation skills.

In the case of improperly referenced direct quotes or paraphrased material, the system still has no way of knowing whether the student who submitted the paper is the original author of the work. At best, it can identify areas in the paper that match existing sources, and leave it up to an instructor to make the final determination as to whether or not the matching material is plagiarized.

This is a common scenario in the case of a paper requiring students to write on a specific topic using provided sources. In this situation, a passage from a properly referenced source would still be flagged as unoriginal content even if the student had written it in their own words. This can result in a false positive, or an area identified as unoriginal that is not actually plagiarized.

The limitations of a detection system reflect the reality that, while it is possible to uncover cases of plagiarism, it is impossible to know for certain whether or not a given passage has been plagiarized. For instance, the SafeAssign system looks for unoriginal content by checking submitted papers against a set of academic papers. However, unoriginal content in a paper may be the result of the student having to quote and reference material from an existing paper in order to adhere to the assignment instructions.

5. Conclusion

Hence, what can be the conclusion of the essay? Using Blackboard as a tool to fight plagiarism has more advantages than its disadvantages. Simple, convincing, and true, Blackboard has given lecturers the best shortcut to fight the growing trend of plagiarism among students. By reducing the risk of plagiarism happening in assignments and projects, the lecturers are being fair to students who actually do the work and those who cheat. Not to be forgotten, Blackboard provides the easiest and fastest way for students to learn how to reference their work properly without changing the concept of the work done by others. By having their assignments checked for plagiarism by the lecturer, students are able to compare their work with what they have done without feeling punished. Last but not least, for students who still cheat and copy others’ work, the originality checking using Blackboard might be the wake-up call for them. Seeing how easily their work can be detected, they will start putting more effort into doing their assignments with original ideas.