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Guidance in Preparing eTMAs

Introduction

This guide has been updated following experience gained from eight years of marking of M206 TMAs and now includes tips from other tutors, information on viewing the returned TMAs and some notes on how to avoid problems in submission. We are currently updating the matching Guide for Tutors. The system worked well for me with all my students participating. There are however a number of potential problems which can be avoided and the process smoothed by taking care in the way the TMA is presented.

A particular problem during the early years was conversions between file formats which can make major changes in layout and further changes can occur when marking in different versions of Office software. The current versions of the marking tool are independent of the software used for marking which is a great improvement over the early days. There is a opportunity to submit a dummy TMA early in the process which is important if you have not used the eTMA system before.

The file conversion problem will return this year (2008) because of the incompatibility of Microsoft Word 2007's default file format and fonts with almost everything including other versions of Word.

Advice on Layout to aid marking and feedback

It has become clear that for electronic marking to work well and provide well presented feedback that some anticipation is required in laying out the TMA. A beautifully presented and polished TMA can have the whole layout destroyed by a single line being inserted! Anticipating the additions your tutor will make to your text and allowing for them will make it much easier to view. The additions which will be made include:

Most of these take up additional space and need a suitable location. Our advice is to:

Office 2007

The file conversion problem will return this year because of the incompatibility of Microsoft Word 2007's default file format and fonts with almost everything including other versions of Word. The instructions to students are to always convert to the 'usual' .doc format which has been around since Office 97 and is now just described as Word Format in the Save As dialogs.

Office 2007 Fonts:

That is however only part of the problem as Office 2007 also installs a number of new fonts including Calibri, Candara, Consolas, Cambria, Constantia, and Corbel. We understand that Calibri is used as the default font in Word 2007 and also Powerpoint, Excel and Outlook. Even if you convert in Word 2007 to the old .doc format you are still using a font which is not available on every machine. An agreement with your tutor is not sufficient as a significant percentage of scripts are double marked and you will never know who the monitor is. There is a Wikipedia Article on Calibri if you are interested.

The consequences of font substitution can be very significant. The tutor or monitor will see the document differently as a font on their machine will be substituted and that will be machine dependent. A change of font will change the size and spacing of the text so the layout will be changed which may be acceptable. The worst problems occur with drawings and mixed drawings and text and we have one example where equations have used some drawings overlaid and the meaning has been completely changed due to text slippage under brackets - that was obvious although the cause was not initially. Worse still text boxes may no longer be large enough to contain the text and the ends of text strings can be lost again changing the meaning completely in several cases we have seen. Combined with a double conversion from .docx to .doc and to Open Office which is used by many tutors, including ourselves, for marking one is no longer sure what one is seeing. This is not a satisfactory situation and the effects are not going to be limited to the OU, one can just imagine the effects in complex technical commercial documents and agreements even if everybody is using Windows - thank you Bill.

The advice to students using Office 2007 must now be:

Most of the above has always been in our advice on eTMA preparation which also formed the basis of the OU Etma advice, an early piece of contract work we carried out. The font issue is new and does not seem to have been recognised - this makes the other advice even more important.

Obtaining the Office 2007 fonts

This is for reference as there is no way you can be sure that a monitor will have them even if a Tutor can be persuaded to add them.

There is also a good write up on obtaining the new fonts for Open Office under Windows XP and Linux in the OpenOffice Ninja Article on Install Free Office 2007 Fonts for XP and Linux

Freezing Pictures

Windows and Word: Most students will have a graphics package with good screen grabbing facilities which they will be familiar with but there are some basic facilities which are good enough built into Windows XP and above which mean you can freeze a drawing in under a minute with practice.

It is best to keep the complex drawings in a different file so you can change them and repeat the above if required.

Linux and Open Office has similar facilities

Styles and inclusion of OU TMA text

The OU TMA questions and answers make use of a number of advanced features of the Word Processor they use. They also use a number of Fonts which are not available in Word on most PCs. There is an increasing tendency to provide them as PDF files but when they are available as document (.doc) files you must take care when pasting in text from the TMA questions or using their documents as an outline for your answer. In Word the "style" of a paragraph is usually displayed in a little window on the left of toolbar for the paragraph containing the cursor. If this is "normal" then all is fine. It may also reflect any indenting/numbering. The "style" information will also migrate into paragraphs you add below a paragraph with a "style" - use the drop down menu next to the display of the "style" to reset to "normal". The same applies to fonts but that is much more obvious and easy to understand and change.

This also causes problems with screen captures that either don't end up in the right place, or on top of one another when pasted in. A reasonable form of presentation can be created in this case if:

(Thanks to Tony Corbett for identifying these problems and a solution)

Tips on using the ETMA System

You must have Cookies and Java enabled to use the ETMA Web sites - Browsers rarely inform you if a Cookie is refused so you may never know. (Tip thanks to Gill Harrison)

It is best to use the web submission as you get better feedback and it is quicker. If you use the email submission route it is best to do so from the normal FirstClass software. If you use a different email package then it should be set to send plain text - the fancy rich text (HTML) available on Outlook Express, Outlook, Netscape and Thunderbird often ends up send text which is partitioned and looks like an extra attachment and thus will not be recognised by the e-TMA system and you will get messages back saying you have sent too many attachments.

Disclaimer

The views here are entirely our own and are not endorsed in any way by the Open University. What is written on these pages is our own experiences and is not intended to replace in any way the documentation supplied with any of the Open University software. Always Backup before installing any Software and on a regular basis. Do a proper cost Benefit and Risk Analysis taking into account your circumstances and knowledge base before making any changes. Past performance is no indication of the future returns.

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