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SafeAssign: Incorporating SafeAssign into the Classroom

 

Other universities using tools like SafeAssign report that students are generally positive about working with the program provided they have sufficient information about the software and adequate guidance in using it (Cohen 5; Smart 2). In order to use the system as an effective and positive learning experience, instructors should plan class lessons to explain the way the system operates and to explicitly address target skill areas like paraphrasing, direct quoting, attribution, and in-text citation.

 

In introducing the program, the instructor should:

• Emphasize both SafeAssign’s capabilities and its limitations
• Explain how SafeAssign will be used to advance student learning
• Set clear expectations for the use of documentation style
• Establish parameters for the expected ratio of student-to-source work
• Explain how students can use their “originality reports” to revise their work and improve their academic writing.

As a learning tool, SafeAssign provides students with the chance to self-assess, revise their work with purpose, and reflect on their academic writing skills. In addition to the opportunity to self-evaluate longer drafts, SafeAssign can be used effectively with smaller process-based assignments that aim at practicing appropriate documentation and striking the right balance between the student’s writing and outside source material.

 

Teaching SafeAssign and Using SafeAssign to Teach

 

As instructors, we should capitalize on SafeAssign’s detection features for learning purposes rather than purely evaluative ones. While SafeAssign is useful for longer papers, either in draft or final form, it can also be used with smaller, more localized assignments that help students with some of the more complicated aspects of academic writing.

 

Because different disciplines have different preferences for using outside sources, students benefit from explicit discussions of the instructor’s expectations in this regard. For example, disciplines in the humanities privilege direct quoting and synthesizing authors and quotations in such a way as to set up a conversation. Thus, papers written for these classes would likely have a higher matching score on a SafeAssign report. On the other hand, classes in the social sciences prefer a more streamlined approach and favor the use of paraphrasing over direct quoting, which would result in a lower matching score. The lowest score of all would undoubtedly result from papers written for courses in the natural sciences where direct quoting is discouraged and paraphrasing is the standard. Making these differences explicit to students is important. Instructors should take the time in class to examine the reasons for these differences and share models that illustrate the desired features. Further, providing students with opportunities to practice the preferred style of the discipline before they must manage longer and more formal writing assignments can go a long way toward building confidence in students and lowering the likelihood of both intentional and unintentional forms of plagiarism.

 

References:

 

Cohen, Judy. “Using Turnitin as a Formative Writing Tool.” CETL Research Symposium Report: Liverpool Hope University, 2007. 05 Dec. 2008. www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/ced/themes/plagiarism/report_on_using_Turnitin.pdf

 

Smart, Tricia. “Utilising Turnitin Formatively to Enhance Academic Writing Skills.” Case Study from University of Bedfordshire.Learning Technologies. 05 Dec. 2008. http://breo.beds.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/orgs/ LearningTechnology/

 

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Also in this section:

• Incorporating SafeAssign into the Classroom
• Using SafeAssign to Teach Paraphrasing
• Using SafeAssign to Teach Direct Quoting
• Using SafeAssign to Teach Student-to-Source Ratio