Direct Submit in SafeAssign gives instructors the option of uploading student papers directly to the institutional database singly or in bulk to generate reports or to add old papers into the pool to be checked for plagiarism.
Direct Submit generates SafeAssign reports on papers submitted outside of a course assignment or can be used to check assignments after they have been submitted.
PLEASE NOTE: Direct Submit is not available to students; only an instructor in the course can use this feature.
Papers uploaded through Direct Submit are only added to the Institutional Database – there is no option to add them to the Global Reference Database since students have to opt-in on a paper-by-paper basis. Additionally, there is no Gradebook integration with papers submitted through Direct Submit. So because Direct Submit does not offer access to the Global Reference Database or integration with Gradebook, instructors should set up and use the SafeAssignments setting in regular assignments to collect submissions whenever possible. For more information about setting up a SafeAssignment, see the TIPS article Creating a SafeAssignment.
Direct Submit allows Instructors to submit papers one at a time or several at once by including them in a .ZIP file.
PLEASE NOTE: .ZIP packages should contain no more than 100 papers and submitting more than 300 papers in a session is not recommended. Additionally, papers with over 5000 sentences or that are more than 10 MB in size cannot be submitted.
How to Submit through Direct Submit
- In the Blackboard course with the Edit Mode on, select Course Tools and then SafeAssign.
- Select DirectSubmit. This brings you to your Direct Submit console.
- If you have already uploaded papers, a list of folders and papers will appear. This list includes papers already uploaded through Direct Submit. It is not recommended that files be deleted from Direct Submit, as this will remove them from the institutional database of existing materials.
- Type in a new folder name to help differentiate papers uploaded for different assignments or reasons. Click Add, and then navigate to a folder or create a new folder where the paper or papers will be uploaded. Note: Papers added to folders in the Private tab are only viewable you you, the instructor. Papers added to folders in the Shared tab are viewable by any one with a role above a student in the course – so TAs, additional instructors, etc.
- Click Submit Paper.
- Select the upload options:
- Submit as Draft: A SafeAssign report will be generated however the paper will not be added to the institutional database and will not be used to check other papers.
- Skip Plagiarism Checking: Adds the papers to the institutional database without checking for content copied from other sources. This is useful if an Instructor wants to upload papers from an earlier course to ensure that current students are not reusing work.
- Select Upload File and browse for the file. Individual papers as well as papers that are grouped in a .ZIP package are accepted. Alternatively, select Copy/Paste Document and add the document text or a portion of the document into the paper text field.
- Click Submit.
Result times vary depending on how many papers are be submitted to the system at any time. Please allow for at least 2 hours.
Supported file types
Direct Submit supports the following file types:
- Microsoft Word document: .doc or .docx
- OpenOffice documents: .odt
- Rich Text Format: .rtf
- HTML: .htm or .html
- Text: .txt
- Zip compressed: .ZIP used to upload multiple files.
- Portable Document Format: .pdf
These instructions were originally found at http://wiki.safeassign.com and edited.