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2/5/2008
Blackboard has released version 8 of the Blackboard Academic Suite 8. The latest release of the learning management system for academic institutions adds a variety of enhancements driven in large part by feedback from the user community, including improvements for administrators and IT, student self- and peer assessments, improved grading features, and the integration of Blackboard's SafeAssign, a plagiarism detection and prevention service.
SafeAssign debuted back in August as a stand-alone tool for plagiarism detection, but it's now integrated directly with the Academic Suite. SafeAssign checks assignments against databases of published articles and also scans the Internet for materials that might have been plagiarized. The databases the system uses include:
Other new features in the Academic Suite include:
Blackboard Academic Suite 8 is available now with support for browsers running on Mac OS X and Windows. Prices vary. See Blackboard's site for information on licensing.
More Information:
About the author: Dave Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's educational technology online publications and electronic newsletters. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.
Have any additional questions? Want to share your story? Want to pass along a news tip? Contact Dave Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.
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