Safe Assign

The University of Kansas subscribes to the digital plagiarism detection program, SafeAssign. Faculty users have found the program to be both effective in determining appropriate use of sources in student papers and effective as a deterrent to plagiarism. Instructional Development and Support (IDS) administers the program through BlackBoard and is happy to talk with instructors interested in incorporating it into their course design.

If you do plan to use SafeAssign, please inform students in advance that you might run checks in order for the process to run smoothly and fairly. If you plan to use the program, please insert the following statement into your syllabus:

The issue of digital plagiarism has raised concerns about ethics, student writing experiences, and academic integrity. KU subscribes to a digital plagiarism detection program called SafeAssign, which may be used to check papers submitted in this course. You may be asked to submit your papers in a digital format (e-mail attachment, BlackBoard(tm) digital drop box or on disk) so that your paper can be checked against web pages and databases of existing papers. Although you may never have engaged in intentional plagiarism, many students do incorporate sources without citations; this program can alert me to your academic needs.

The KU Writing Center also offers individual consultations for instructors who wish to discourage plagiarism through assignment and course design. Please contact us for an individual or departmental consultation.