Every individual can tell that the world is moving away from the contemporary way of doing things to online services. One sector that continues to experience this shift is the education sector.
Today, most educational institutions are leaning towards e-learning with the help of digital applications such as Blackboard, whose main aim is to ease the digital learning and teaching process.
However, as much as Blackboard and other digital applications have eased e-learning, some stakeholders argue that these platforms have led to the skyrocketing of cheating cases among learners.
That is why this article discusses the role of Blackboard in trying to curb plagiarism and cheating by answering various questions such as; Does Blackboard check for plagiarism?
Does Blackboard Check for Plagiarism?
Blackboard employs the Blackboard plagiarism checker, known as SafeAssign, to check for plagiarism in the papers submitted on the platform. Therefore, educators and online tutors do not need to exit Blackboard to check the students’ assignments for plagiarism separately because they can use the Copyeaks Blackboard Learning Management System.
The Blackboard Learning Management System allows instructors, through the Copyleaks plugin, to create assessments for their learners. The instructors can also give instructions such as the submission date.
When the students submit their assignments, the teacher presses the scan button, and Blackboard SafeAssign scans the papers for possible plagiarism. After matching the texts for similarities, the software produces a plagiarism report that previous users have agreed to be accurate.
Remember, tutors can enable an option that allows the students to see their papers’ plagiarism reports. With such an option, learners whose papers appear to be plagiarized have an opportunity to rework their assignments and resubmit them when they are ready.
Does Blackboard have a Plagiarism Checker?
Blackboard consists of an efficient plagiarism checker responsible for checking out plagiarism in students’ assignments directly from the platform. The developers of this software created the Blackboard plagiarism checker to save on time that would otherwise be consumed in scanning papers to detect plagiarism.
The plagiarism checker generates the plagiarism report instantly.
It is worth noting that the Blackboard plagiarism checker supports many formats. Therefore, tutors do not need to convert the submitted papers into particular file formats to charter the plagiarism checker.
How Do You Know Which Plagiarism Checker Blackboard is Using?
Blackboard is usually merged with SafeAssign, a well-known and effective plagiarism detection software. This application checks for plagiarism by comparing the student’s assignments against a massive repository of previously submitted papers.
As a student, you can only know the plagiarism checker Blackboard uses after submitting your assignment. Under the view your assignment option, Blackboard enables you to view the plagiarism checker it uses and allows you to view your assessment’s originality report.
SafeAssign and Turnitin are the plagiarism checkers that Blackboard assign mostly.
Does Blackboard Use Turnitin?
Blackboard has integrated Turnitin on its platform to check for similarities in the Turnitin-enabled assignments. Course instructors can create a Turnitin Feedback studio where they can set up assessments in Blackboard.
When students submit their papers, Turnitin checks for text matching against its database of previous assignments and generates an originality report.
The whole process of originality checking of Turnitin assignments in Blackboard occurs in four steps. First, the course instructor creates the Turnitin assessment in Blackboard, after which the students upload their papers under the Turnitin Assignment link.
After the submissions, the instructor accesses the similarity report, which they can also allow their students to view through the Turnitin assignment link.
Does Blackboard Detect Paraphrasing?
The Blackboard plagiarism checker can trace paraphrased content in multiple languages. Remember, the learning management system integrates SafeAssign and Turnitin in its platform to detect similarities in students’ assignments. The software smoke out even the slightest forms of text matching, including paraphrased papers.
Blackboard’s integrated plagiarism checkers compare the submitted papers against Blackboard’s massive database and other internet sources. This makes the platform perfect for similarity detection.
Therefore, if a student submits a poorly paraphrased assignment without proper citations, the plagiarism checker will identify similar phrases and sentence structures. However, the platform will have difficulties detecting similarities in a well-paraphrased assignment.
Does Blackboard Always Check for Cheating?
Blackboard integrates multiple mechanisms that constantly check for cheating in submitted assignments. The learning management system incorporates lockdown browsers, proctored tests, IP, audio, video monitoring, and plagiarism checkers known as SafeAssign and Turnitin. The platform has put all these mechanisms to detect students who violate its anti-cheating policies and rules.
As earlier said, Blackboard engages the Respondus Monitor, LockDown Browser, and a human invigilator to check for cheating during the exam. The Respondus Monitor employs the student’s webcam to record their surroundings during the Blackboard test.
Consequently, the LockDown browser restrains particular computer activities such as keyboard shortcuts, copy-paste, opening new tabs, screen capture, and the right-click button.
On the other hand, Blackboard employs the services of SafeAssign plagiarism checker to detect cheating in students’ papers after submission. Therefore, after integrating these mechanisms, Blackboard ensures that students do not cheat, and if they do, the platform can catch them.
Can Blackboard Detect Images?
Blackboard cannot detect images in the students’ submissions, similar to the other plagiarism detecting software. It is crucial noting that the Blackboard plagiarism checker traces similarities between submissions based on texts only.
This means that the platform does not detect images such as pictures, maps, graphs, and pie charts in students’ submissions.
However, since Blackboard supports adding images to the test questions, students can use this method to bypass the Blackboard plagiarism checker.
Conclusion
So, does Blackboard check for plagiarism? After reading this article comprehensively, one could agree that Blackboard is pretty efficient in checking for plagiarism in submitted assignments.
This revelation calls for every student that uses this platform to be careful when answering questions by trying to be as original as possible.
In addition, students should avoid cheating during the Blackboard exams because the mechanisms that the platform employs to curb cheating will catch them. Blackboard is pretty strict when it comes to maintaining academic integrity.