Blackboard – using SafeAssign to check originality

Contents

Staff Guide: How to enable SafeAssign and view reports to check Originality on Blackboard Assignments and Tests.

About SafeAssign

SafeAssign compares submitted work with published sources and other student submissions. It produces an Originality Report showing possible text matches. The report supports academic judgement. Academic misconduct cannot be determined through the tool alone.

For more information, see
– Blackboard’s SafeAssign help guide.
– Blackboard’s SafeAssign Originality Report guide.

Before you start

Create the Blackboard Assignment or Blackboard Test and add its title, instructions, due date and other settings. Then continue with the steps below.

Enable SafeAssign

Open the Blackboard assessment where you want to enable SafeAssign.
Select Settings [cog icon].
Scroll down to the bottom of settings options.
Under Originality Report, select Enable SafeAssign.

Enable SafeAssign checkbox.

Choose the report options:

Allow students to view the SafeAssign Originality Report for their attempts: students can open their report after submitting.
Exclude submissions from the institutional and Global Reference Databases: SafeAssign checks the work but does not add it to the reference databases. Use this for drafts or practice submissions where appropriate.

Screenshot of SafeAssign settings within a Blackboard Assignment with Enable SafeAssign checkbox ticked. — *Choose whether students can view the report and whether submissions are added to the reference databases.*

Select Save.

Screenshot showing that SafeAssign has been enabled on this assignment. — You will now see that SafeAssign has been enabled on this assessment.

Check the remaining assessment settings.
Select Save to finish editing.

Supported files types and requirements

SafeAssign can check common document formats, including DOCX, PDF, PPTX, ODT, TXT, RTF, HTML and HTM. Unsupported files can be included in the compressed folder but will not be processed by SafeAssign and therefore not generate a similarity report.

Each file must contain fewer than 100,000 words.

Each uploaded file size must be smaller than 25MB.

If you intended to mark and provide feedback using inline grading in Blackboard Assignments, please inform your students they will need to to submit in the DOCX or PDF file types.

From October 2026, you can limit student submissions to only include certain file types.

View an Originality Report

Select the Assignment, then go to the Submissions tab.
You will see a column, Originality, showing that a report has been generated.
Open the student’s attempt.
Within the marking view, either expand the feedback panel [1. grey circle with left arrow] or select the Originality Report button [2. text icon with green tick in circle] to show a quick summary.

Screenshot of mark view showing the feedback panel with 1 expand feedback panel and 2 originality report button.

The SafeAssign Originality Report Summary will be shown (1).
Expand or collapse the Originality Report Summary using the chevron icon (2)
Select Additional content (3) to open the full SafeAssign Originality Report [opens in a new window/tab].