Systems
SafeAssign
The university's online text matching software is called SafeAssign. It can be used by staff or students to check assignment text against internal and external databases as a plagiarism prevention tool. This allows students to check assignments for incorrect referencing or unacknowledged quotes prior to submission.
Documents submitted via Learning@Griffith are sent via the internet to SafeAssign, where the content is automatically checked for originality against documents from other sources: for example, documents available for public access on the Internet, major library databases, a Griffith University institutional document archive (containing all assignments submitted to SafeAssign by Griffith staff and students), and the SafeAssign Global Reference Database, which contains documents submitted by other institutions around the world.
Once the document has been checked, a report is generated and automatically made available via Learning@Griffith. The report shows which, if any, text in the submitted document matches text from other documents.
This service can help educators prevent plagiarism by detecting unoriginal content in student papers. In addition to acting as a plagiarism deterrent, it also has features designed to aid in educating students about plagiarism and importance of proper attribution of any borrowed content.
Help sheets, which contain screen shots, have been developed to assist students and staff to use SafeAssign.
Student Guides:
Submitting a SafeAssignment [PDF]
Accessing and Interpreting SafeAssign Reports for Students [PDF]
Staff Guides:
Creating a SafeAssignment [PDF]
Using Direct Submit [PDF]
Accessing and Interpreting SafeAssign Reports for Staff [PDF]
Trial Report
The University trialled the use of SafeAssign and evaluated this in 2007, before moving to full implementation.
SafeAssign Trial Report [DOC]