SafeAssign™ is a plagiarism prevention service in Blackboard. This service helps educators prevent plagiarism by detecting unoriginal content in student papers.  In addition to acting as a plagiarism deterrent, it also has features designed to aid in educating students about plagiarism and importance of proper attribution of any borrowed content.

To upload your assignment to SafeAssign:

1. Log into Blackboard
2. Locate where the instructor wishes you to submit the assignment. (Normally in a course documents, assignments, or tests section) Be sure to confirm with your instructor which tab it is located.
3. You can tell which assignment is SafeAssign because of the green logo. Click the View/Complete link.



4. SafeAssign gives you a brief explanation of the service at the top and more in section one.



5. In section two, you have to option to add in any comments as well as upload your document. Click the Choose File button to proceed to upload your document.



6. In section 3, you are asked if you want the document to be uploaded to the Global Database. This is optional. If you wish to do so, click on box next to “I agree to submit my paper…”



7. Click Submit
8. By clicking the View/Complete link again, you will be able to see your submission.

Groups are subsets of students from a given class. Groups can be defined by your instructor, or be created by students. For instructor created groups, students can either be assigned to a group or have the option to opt-in, depending on how the instructor created the group.

1. Log into Blackboard
2. Select your course from the Course List
3. From the Course Menu, choose Groups.
    

   NOTE: Your instructor may have opted not to include this link, or re-named it. You can also access the Groups by clicking Tools then clicking Groups from the list.
   

4. Any groups in which you are already enrolled will appear in the My Groups list underneath the Course Menu. Click on the down chevron (on the left) to expand the group options, or the right chevron (on the right) to open the group main page in the content area.
   
5. If you expand the group options, you will get a list of all of the actions you can do with your group. The group space functions as a miniature Blackboard site, so you have many of the same functions here (such as blogs and discussion boards) that you do in the larger class space. The difference is that only members of the group and the instructor can see this information.You can also customize the group colors and banner independently from the larger class space.



6. If you expand the Group with the right chevron, you go to the default page of the Group. You can select which boxes appear on this page with Add Personal Module. Notice that the Group Tools that appeared when you selected the down chevron in the My Groups Menu also appear in a module on the Group home page.
   
7. To create a group, select Groups from the Course Menu (or from the Tools menu) and select Create Group. One use for creating your own group might be if you would like to organize a study group for a particular class.
   
8. Fill out the form, and click Submit. Now you can click the name of your group to edit the homepage. Other students can enroll in your group if they wish.

If you would like to download this tutorial, click here: BB9 Student – using groups!

The instructor may have enabled a Voice Board which works similarly to a discussion board except that the content has voice messages attached. You must have speakers/headphones and a microphone on your computer for this to work.

1. Log into Blackboard
2. Select your course from the Course List
3. Navigate to the Voice Board. Depending on how the instructor set up your Blackboard course, the Voice Board may be under Content, it may be under a learning module, or it may be elsewhere.
4. Once you have opened the Voice Board, you may

Composing a New Thread

If your instructor has allowed students to create new threads, follow the instructions below to do so.

1. Click the New button to compose a new thread. A new Compose window will appear with audio controls in its upper left-hand corner.



2. Provide a Subject in the Subject text box
3. Click the Record button and record your message.



4. When you are finished recording click the square Stop



5. The message area is the text box located below the Audio controls.  This is where you can provide a text transcript of what you have said.
6. Click the Post button to submit your voice thread.
   
   Note: If you reach the maximum audio message length, recording will cease. All audio you have recorded up to that point will be preserved.

Replying to a Message

To reply to a message follow the steps below:

• Select the message to which you wish to reply
• Click the Reply button in the upper left-hand corner.

A new window will open. The process for creating a reply is identical to that of a new thread; the only difference is that any text associated with the message to which you are replying appears inline in the large text field at the bottom of the message. You can leave this text for reference, delete, or overwrite it.

Reviewing a Message

1. Click the message title in the Voice Board. The message, along with any associated text, will appear in the message pane at the bottom of the Voice Board.
2. To listen to an audio message, click the Play button on the right-hand side of the message.

• Messages with text (but with no audio recording) show a white paper icon to the left of the message title.
• Messages with audio (but with no text in the message body) display a black speaker icon to the right of the title.
• Messages that contain both audio and text in the message body display both a speaker and a paper icon to the right of the title.

Saving Message Audio
Audio associated with any message can be downloaded to your local hard drive.

1. Select the message you wish to save from the Voice Board.
2. In the right-hand corner of the Voice Player, click the Save As button and select Save As…



3. A new window will appear. Select the download location of your choice. Use the Files of Type drop-down box to select the file format you wish to save. You may select .wav, .spx, or .mp3.
4. Enter an appropriate name in the File Name box and click Save

To download this tutorial, click here: BB9 Student – voice board!