Hi everyone
I looked at safeassign that came with Bb last summer. It may have changed since then, as this was an early version, but my impression was not particularly good. I have to say that I have been using Turnitin via Bb for some time and so perhaps I am biased!
1. Its ease-of-use
pretty straight forward to use, very similar to a Bb assignment. Unlike TII, no email receipt for the student. Text matching report was in a simple format, clear option to re-submit for rescanning without particular sources, offers direct email link - URL for emailing to share with colleagues. Once colour highlighting turned on, straightforward to see how matching text is placed (layout similar to old classic report of Turnitin). Print version is in black and white using numbers and italics to identify plagiarised passages. However, matching text initially highlighted all in the same colour – bright blue. To highlight individual sources in ‘highlighter’ style colour, must click on each source. There is no option to remove quotes or references. ‘Side by side’ equivalent view limited, puts both paragraphs on top of one another in pop box, need to compare by eye, without colour or other indication to point out matching.
2. Any pedagogical or technical limitations/bugs
In a test piece I made (with material taken from wikipedia and other websites) safeassign dida reasonable job of finding the source text. I quite commonly exclude sources from a TII originality report, to check on underlying sources,. however this was problematic in safeassign. If some sources are excluded, the whole report is rescanned and new sources are found as expected, however there is no way to then re-include the original sources again or return to the original report. Here, I removed the two original sources, which picked up a further 3 sources, then trying to re-include the first 2 sources, resubmitted again, only this time to come up with three sources. On the first run, Safeassign correctly attributed two of five the pieces. However, of the three it missed, one was it’s own wiki and two were from wikipedia (this would be my first target for a place to crawl…). Safeassign uses MSN live Search as far as I am aware, which I have never found a particularly reliable search engine.
3. Scaleability across an institution and any hardware/network issues
Didn't get this far!
4. If you have used both TII and SafeAssign, do you have any preferences or comparison views
A major issue for me with migrating current staff from Turnitin to SafeAssign is the very different way that percentage scores for non-originality are calculated and interpreted. Turnitin uses a percentage matching score, which takes the best match to a source and counts the number of words that match between the student work and the source expressed as a percentage of the total number of words in the piece. These scores are collated to give a final score, so that a non-originality score of 42% means that of 100 words written by the student, 42 match to another source. However, SafeAssign uses a percentage probability score. This means that scores given for each sentence highlighted as containing matching text is a measure of the probability of these two sentences matching, the overall score given to the piece as a whole is an ‘indicator’ of what percentage matches have been found. This will lead to major confusion for staff in interpretation of these different systems.
At the end of the day, Safeassign is 'free' (if you don't count the Bb fees!!!), but I do generally get good support from TII for the subscription. We may consider using safeassign for student self submission in the future.
Hope that is useful!
Jo
________________________________________
From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lewis D J A (LCSS) [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 04 June 2008 14:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: SafeAssign
Rich,
We have been asking exactly the same questions of ourselves, with addition of the cost and implications for access to old assignments. I’d love to hear what feedback you get, if it’s off-list.
David
David J A Lewis BSc(Hons) PGCE MIBiol CBiol MIAP MBCS
Blended Learning Coordinator
Esupport Team, ISeLS
J270, Tâf Building
University of Glamorgan,
CF37 1DL.
01443 654229
http://celt.glam.ac.uk
________________________________
From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Richard Hall
Sent: 04 June 2008 12:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: SafeAssign
Hi,
We are considering our options for Plagiarism Detection.
Is anyone using SafeAssign in anger? If so I would be grateful for an off-list update on:
1. Its ease-of-use
2. Any pedagogical or technical limitations/bugs
3. Scaleability across an institution and any hardware/network issues
4. If you have used both TII and SafeAssign, do you have any preferences or comparison views
Best wishes,
Richard.
Dr Richard Hall,
e-Learning Co-ordinator, Quality Improvement Team, Department of Academic Quality,
De Montfort University, Leicester. LE1 9BH.
e: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> w: 0116 207 8254 m: 07799-056545
http://dmupathfinder.blogspot.com
Take action: http://birminghamchristmasshelter.blogspot.com/
|