SafeAssign, a plagiarism detection tool integrated into Blackboard’s educational platform, has long been trusted by educators to verify the originality of student submissions. With the rapid rise of AI-generated content, especially through tools like ChatGPT, educators and institutions are now questioning whether SafeAssign can effectively detect material created by artificial intelligence. This raises broader concerns about academic integrity, the evolving landscape of content creation, and the reliability of existing plagiarism detection systems in this new frontier.
TLDR
SafeAssign is designed to detect copied content by comparing submitted papers against a database of academic and internet sources. However, it does not explicitly detect whether content was generated by AI tools like ChatGPT. While some AI-generated content might be flagged if it closely matches existing sources, much of it can escape detection if it is unique and paraphrased. Educators seeking to identify AI-written text may need to utilize additional tools purpose-built for AI detection.
What Is SafeAssign and How Does It Work?
SafeAssign is a plagiarism prevention service provided by Blackboard, a Learning Management System (LMS) used by many schools and universities. It works by comparing submitted content with academic papers, web pages, and other student submissions available in its internal databases and public archives. The main mechanism behind SafeAssign is:
- Text Matching Algorithms: It uses string-matching patterns to find phrases and sentences that are directly lifted or slightly altered from known sources.
- Originality Reports: After scanning the document, SafeAssign generates a percentage-based report indicating what portion of the content matches other sources.
- Source Highlighting: Matching text is shown alongside the corresponding original source to help instructors assess the legitimacy of student work.
SafeAssign is a robust tool against blatant plagiarism. However, it was not specifically designed to detect AI-generated content — a kind of writing that may not exist anywhere else in exact form but is nonetheless not authentically human-written.
Can SafeAssign Detect AI-Generated Content?
The short answer is: not directly. SafeAssign currently focuses on detecting similarity to known sources, not the method or tool used to create the writing. Here’s why SafeAssign often fails to catch AI-generated content:
- AI Text is Often Original: Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT typically generate novel text that doesn’t directly quote or mimic any specific online source. This uniqueness enables it to evade traditional plagiarism detection tools.
- No AI Signature: SafeAssign does not look for writing patterns, sentence structures, or semantic clues that would indicate AI authorship, unlike tools specifically trained for the task.
- Lack of AI Dataset Integration: Unlike plagiarism tools that now incorporate dummy AI-generated databases for training, SafeAssign does not yet include this additional layer of detection.
Hence, if a student submits a paper fully generated by an AI tool and it doesn’t contain direct lifts from public or academic sources, SafeAssign may report a score of 0% plagiarism — falsely signaling a completely authentic submission.
What Do Experts Say?
We consulted with several academic professionals, cybersecurity analysts, and ed-tech experts to understand SafeAssign’s efficacy in this new AI era. Their consensus can be summarized around the following points:
- Limited AI Detection: “SafeAssign isn’t equipped to identify the provenance of the text—only whether it has appeared elsewhere,” says Dr. Helen King, an academic integrity researcher.
- Reliance on Similarity Index: “If AI-generated content is rephrasing internet material and the original exists in its database, SafeAssign might flag it. But if it’s completely novel, it’ll pass through unnoticed,” notes James Lin, a cyber-ethics professor.
- Need for Complementary Tools: Most experts recommend that educators use AI-detection tools like Turnitin’s AI-writing detection tool, GPTZero, or Originality.ai in tandem with SafeAssign for best results.
Use Cases: Where SafeAssign Fails and Succeeds
Understanding real-world use cases can provide better insight into where SafeAssign is helpful — and where it’s not.
Use Case 1: Conventional Plagiarism
A student copies large chunks from a Wikipedia article and submits it as part of an essay. SafeAssign flags the content immediately, providing source references and a plagiarism score of 40%.
Verdict: SafeAssign works perfectly.
Use Case 2: AI Written, but Based on Cited Material
Another student uses ChatGPT to paraphrase journal articles but doesn’t include citations. Although the student did not copy directly, the paraphrased sentences resemble original content enough to trigger a SafeAssign match — though with a lower score (10%-15%).
Verdict: Partial detection, depending on semantic overlap.
Use Case 3: Fully AI-Generated, Original Narrative
A student asks an AI to write a novel essay on 18th-century literature, completely original and free of citations or recognizable phrasing. SafeAssign returns a 0% match, believing the text to be fully unique.
Verdict: Failure to detect AI authorship.
Are There Better Alternatives for AI Detection?
In response to mounting pressures, some platforms now offer hybrid solutions that are more adept at identifying AI involvement in writing. Here are a few worth noting:
- Turnitin: Has incorporated functionality to detect AI-generated text with relatively high accuracy by analyzing text coherence and linguistic stylization.
- GPTZero: A specialized AI detector that evaluates whether writing is more likely produced by a human or an AI, using metrics like burstiness and perplexity.
- Originality.ai: Offers a commercial solution with the ability to detect both plagiarism and AI-generated content, making it popular among publishers and educators.
These tools analyze structural patterns, sentence length variability, and context depth — elements that LLMs currently struggle to emulate authentically — thereby offering a higher likelihood of spotting non-human authorship.
Can Students Use AI Tools Without Triggering SafeAssign?
The unfortunate reality is: yes, they can. Students familiar with how SafeAssign works can ask AI tools to generate novel, paraphrased, or citation-free content. These can easily slip through SafeAssign undetected.
However, it’s important to note that bypassing detection does not equal academic honesty. Most institutions have policies penalizing unauthorized assistance, regardless of whether it was caught by technology. Educators are also becoming more adept at recognizing signs of AI writing through close reading — such as overly formal tone, perfect grammar, or shallow reasoning masked by verbosity.
How Should Educators Respond?
Educators now face a critical need to adapt assignments, teaching formats, and detection methods to ensure fair grading and academic integrity. Here are some expert recommendations:
- Redesign Assignments: Focus on reflective, process-based, or personalized questions that are harder for AI to answer accurately.
- Use Multi-layered Detection: Combine tools like SafeAssign with AI-specific detectors and even manual checkpoints such as writing workshops or in-person evaluations.
- Discuss Ethics: Engage students in conversations about academic responsibility and the consequences of misusing AI tools.
Final Thoughts
SafeAssign remains a vital component of academic integrity enforcement in educational settings, particularly for catching traditional plagiarism. However, it is not equipped to determine with certainty whether a piece of writing was authored by a human or an AI. As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, so too must the tools and methodologies used to ensure honesty in academic work.
Educators, administrators, and students all share the responsibility to reassess their approach in this new landscape — one where originality may no longer be about where the words come from, but how they were made.