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Guidance in Preparing and Viewing eTMAs

Introduction

This guide has been updated following experience gained from the first two years 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 finalising a matching Guide for Tutors. The system worked well for me the first year with only one student unable to participate and all my students participated the second year from TMA02 onwards. 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 first year was in conversions between file formats which can make major changes in layout and further changes can occur when loading into the marking template. During the first year the marking tool was only available in Word 6/7 and this was reflected in the student and tutor guides. Last year M206 tutors had a version for Office 97 which was much easier to use and there is a promising new version for the year 2000. The support for Word 6 now seems to be withdrawn, however it seems prudent to continue to cover some of our experiences with Word 6 and the earlier marking tools until the position is completely clear.

Contact your tutor directly to check what to do if you do not have Microsoft Word 97 or 2000

If you get agreement to use other Word processors minimise risks by converting yourself and examining the result in the Word Viewer.

In addition to the information here you should note:

There is a conference called "ACS e-TMA ?s" in the ACS Help Desk area with a sub-conference for tutors - both are worth a visit.

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:

Large Ticks
Marks (for parts and whole questions)
Links to Annotations
Additional text for clarification and corrections
Highlighting and deletion of text

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

Provide locations for feedback to land - add a few lines after every part of a question, under every table and under every graphic. Three lines is sufficient to allow for links to annotations, marks and ticks without changing your layout.
Avoid Blue and Red - the tutors comments are in Blue or Red and deleted text in Red.
Let text flow - Reserve page ends for starts of questions otherwise they will inevitably end up in the wrong places.
Do not use Macros - files containing macros are rejected by some virus checkers.
Tabular output - Simple tables seem to be OK whilst there is evidence tab settings and margins can change.
Minimise use of "Styles" - in particular watch out if you include inserts from OU TMA questions. See below for details.
Avoid graphics when text will do - cut and paste text rather than graphics to reduce size and risk. Most tutors do not require big screen dumps (and telephone bills) as proof of postings!
Keep Graphics simple - do not overlay graphics and text or other graphics - they will move and parts get lost.
Keep Graphics Small: It is easier to mark if the graphics are sized to a screen without changing magnification and losing detail
Drawing tools - "Freeze" graphics from Drawing Tools into a single standard graphic so the parts do not move.
Avoid wrapping text round Graphics
Check Word 97 and 2000 Autocorrect options - they can "correct" your Smalltalk code capitalisation without you realising - See below.
Convert to Word 97 yourself - (if you need to) and examine carefully (using the viewer) to see what happens.
Force Word 97 compatibility - If you have Word 2000 use the option to force compatibility with Word 97.
KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) - Do not use fancy features which conversion or marking will change or lose or where inserts will destroy the effects.

Tips on using the ETMA System

You must have Cookies and Java enabled to use the ETMA Web sites - Netscape navigator does not even inform you if a Cookie is refused so you may never know. (Tip thanks to Gill Harrison)

Email submissions should use Plain Text. 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 4 and 5, Outlook 97 and 98 and probably other packages will not be recognised by the e-TMA system and you will get messages back saying you have sent too many attachments.

On most Microsoft email systems "Plain text" can be set for an individual message using the Format button on the toolbar. Tools -> Options -> Mail Format (or Send) tab typically allows one to set the default format.
If you use Netscape Communicator/Messenger you can typically set all outgoing email to be plain text by Edit -> Preferences -> Mail & NewsGroups -> Formatting and set the Radio buttons to "Use Plain Text editor to compose messages" and "Convert the message to plain text" then click on OK (closing it with the X button loses your changes). Other options allow you to compose in HTML and use the address book entry to choose the format sent (Information thanks to River~~)

Recent - Zip File must be a Binary Attachment.: You should also make sure that, if you are given a choice, the attachment is set to be "Binary" not text otherwise you will get messages saying it is not a valid zip format from the eTMA system. (Tip thanks to River~~)

New - Do not break up messages: Some email packages allow long emails to be broken up to escape through firewalls. The eTMA system does not support this.

Viewing the returned TMA

All Students

The correct way to view the returned TMA, especially if you are doing M206, is to use "Microsoft Word Viewer 97" which is provided on the M206 CD 1. Other courses can download a viewer from the ETMA site.

The marking tools are designed to work with the Word Viewers and it is the only way to be sure you are seeing the Tutors comments and marks as the are intended.

The Word Viewer needs to be configured to display Hidden text before the marks and annotations can be seen or printed:

Go View -> Options and on both the View and Printer screens check the Show - Nonprinting Characters - Hidden Text box

Unless this is done you will not see any of the Marks awarded or the Annotations made! In the case of Annotations

Hovering over Annotations opens a large "bubble"
Double-click an Annotation to open a lower pane
or open a lower pane by View -> and Comments

Loading Word Viewer 97

When you load the Word Viewer you will be given a choice on whether to associate all .doc files with the Viewer or with Word. If you have Word loaded you will want the .doc files to remain associated with Word (that is open in Word if you double click the file). If you get it wrong uninstall the Viewer and start again which will reset the associations.

Experienced Students with the compatible versions of Word

Once you are sure what you are doing users of the same version of Word as their tutor may be able to open the document (.doc file) and see it the same as the Tutor. You will also need to use Page Layout view and set up the options so you can see the highlighted marks and tutor annotations (displaying hidden text). Most of the tutors work goes into providing marks and annotations so Look For Them!

The marking template and .pt3 file are also be loaded by the earlier versions of the marking tools so I suggest that if you do use your own versions of Word that you:

Make a copy of all the files to avoid accidental changes

Keep the .pt3 and .doc files in the same directory.

Make very sure marks and annotations are visible.

Check using the Word Viewer to make sure you are not missing anything.

Versions of the Word Viewer

M206 students should use the Word Viewer supplied on the M206 software disks. The latest information and versions are on the Microsoft web-site at http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadDetails/wd97vwr32.htm (select the Viewer for Word 97/2000 on PCs using Windows 95/98 or Windows NT item - 3) many thanks to Paul Livingstone for the latest position in December 1999. Note - Microsoft keep moving things so you often have to search!. At the time this was first written (August 1998) the version on the Tutor site and possibly the Student site (which we can not access) were older. If you have an old version uninstall it and reinstall a new one. Loading very old versions designed for Windows 3.1 may destroy associations and can cause serious problems to users of Office 97.

Only Install 32 bit Word Viewer files (wd97vwr32.exe) dated after October 97.

I emphasise yet again that to display the annotations and marks awarded you must configure all versions of the Word Viewer - see above:

Notes for Tutors

The files will display in the Viewers in a way which contains all the information from the marking tool although there are some small differences in presentation which tutors need to be aware of when marking. The differerences between looking at a marked TMA using the OU-supplied Word 97 Viewer (97 Marking tool in brackets) identified to date are:

Inserted text comments are red and underlined (blue)
Crossing out is red (blue)
Annotations - hovering over them opens a large "bubble" (double-click opens a lower pane ) or open lower pane by View -> tick Comments
Annotation formating - Tutors note that paragraphing and other formating is lost in bubbles
Callouts may have line in the wrong place - Tutors should check if they use them

The above identified thanks to Gill Harrison.

Note also: Changes occur if the marked TMAs are displayed in Word when the tool is not loaded to when it is loaded.

NOTE The above was true for the Word 97 marking tool - the 2000 marking tool does not need callouts and the colour of comments can be changed.

Other considerations when using the Word 97 Viewer:

To quote from Microsoft the: "Microsoft Word Viewer 97, the newest member of the Word Viewer family, is a freeware product that allows you to view and print Microsoft Word 97 documents. Like previous versions of Word Viewer, the latest version can also open documents created with all previous versions of Word for Windows and version 4.x and above of Microsoft Word for Macintosh." Although not stated it ignores macros so you should be safe from macro viruses.

Two features of the viewer need to be noted by tutors and students: The first is that:

if one opens a submission in Word Viewer 97 one can not tell what word processor has been used or if it will open in the template.

I got caught when checking e-TMAs after downloading by two e-TMAs in Word 97 and one was full of macros which my Virus Checker rejects. Students can get caught the same way checking before uplifting.

The second is that to quote "Microsoft Word Viewer 97 is optimized for displaying Word documents inside Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.x and above. If you have Netscape Navigator 2.x or above, Word Viewer Setup will install a plug-in that allows Word Viewer 97 to display documents inside the Navigator window." :- You therefore end up with modifications to all your Browsers which you may not have wanted but again they should be safer from viruses!

Word 97 - Important Considerations
for preparing eTMAs

Why worry about Word 97: Most students are preparing TMAs using Word 97. This is not suprising as it is packaged with many new machines and is part of Office 97 which is available cheaply to Students and Tutors (under Ł100). Last year I had 95% using Word 97 by the end.

Requirement for SR1 or patches: There have been a number of patches. Recent purchases will have a service pack installed (SR-1) which corrected a problem for those using the ETMA system.

To find out if you have Service Release 1 of Office 97 look for a tiny SR-1 on the CD or open Word and do Help -> About Microsoft Word.

There is a patch available on the Microsoft Site - there is no simple URL but I have checked there is still a link at the bottom of http://www.microsoft.com/word/freestuff/converters/wrd97cnv.htm otherwise search for Wd6ex32.exe in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (Search on the Microsoft Home Page gets you there eventually!)

Important - Reducing Word 97 file sizes before submitting them: Word keeps a lot of undo information and does not garbage collect well. This can grossly inflate the size of a file (and can be a security risk if you send it to someone). Copying the contents via Select All -> Copy and Pasting into a new document will sometimes work wonders - I have seen a 15 fold reduction on one occasion in a students submission. This is also true for Powerpoint. A tip from River~~ is that you should also disable "Fast Saves" - the slower saves re-write the entire file and leave out (most) of the undo info in the process.

Warning - Word 97 Autocorrect - Effects on Smalltalk code for M206: Word 97 has a number of correction facilities which are turned on by default. They will amongst other things change the capitalisation of words without one being aware. It will, for example, always ensure a sentence starts with a capital letter.

This gives problems with preparing M206 TMAs with Smalltalk code and I have had students contacting me to ensure they had not lost marks when they realised what had occurred. It is clearly also possible for Tutors using the Word 8 marking tool to seriously lose credibility if changes are not noticed in their marking. It is possible to end up with all sorts of odd changes and some of my marking was converted into copyright symbols and smileys.

If one notices the changes one can often go back and correct them individually but it is much better to turn the facilities off

Turn Autocorrect options off using Tools -> Autocorrect where you will find 4 tabs full of potential disasters.

Imported Graphics in Office 97 The following tips may help avoid or locate conversion problems:

Turn on the display of non printing characters using the Hide/Show button (a ¶
near the right of the toolbar) so you can see what is going on and where the graphics are anchored.
- Enter is an end of paragraph
- Shift Enter is a line break
- Control Enter forces an end of page
Converting to Word 6 often seems to put Graphics into a Frame and wraps text round them - this can lead to all the graphics on top of each other and surrounded by their labels! (one TMA reduced from 16 to 12 pages).
Selecting a Graphic and right click gives access to the commands to change the text wrapping etc (either Format Picture or Format Frame is usually present in all versions of Word)
Try saving in Word 6 format (use Save As and a different filename), closing the file, reopening the file, sorting out the positions of the "converted" graphics and again saving in Word 6 format

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:

at least one new paragraph is inserted before the pasting is done;
the pasting is done into that paragraph;
that paragraph is given the style called 'Normal'.

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

Potential problems using the marking tools - for Tutors

No drawings visible: Drawings only show up in Page View whilst the marking tool starts up in Normal View - catches everyone at some point!

Write Protected File reported: Some students files are reported as write protected by the marking tools although not actually protected. The cause is not known but seems to be related to changing file formats. Solutions are:

Unzip a new copy of the file and open and close before reading into the template - this has always worked for me.
If this does not work copy and paste the entire contents of the problem file into a new word file and rename - this may change the fonts and layout so it is a last resort.

.PPF files and the Word8 template: The .ppf file contains the working copy of the pt3 file and is always deleted by the Word6 template. The ppf file is not always deleted by the Word8 template so you may find it when you zip up to return the eTMAs - opening and closing the file in the template without doing anything else will get rid of of it most times if you are concerned. I usually check it has the same time and date when I zip up for returning. If there has been a problem in the template the pt3 does not get updated and you could send an old mark if you mark in sections like I do. I have not had any problems in 80 or so real etmas but I saw this happen when testing.

Virus Checking: There are an increasing number of macro viruses in the wild - updates are needed more frequently than before. I now update every 2/3 weeks rather than monthly.

STOP PRESS There is now a dedicated document Guidance in Marking using the ETMA system for Tutors (and students who want to see the other side of the story)

Conversions from Lotus Wordpro 97 via HTML

Warning: The technique here is under test and strictly for use between consenting tutors and students.

Problem: Wordpro 97 does not seem to output drawings and graphics in an acceptable manner for Word 97 to read.

Solution: It does convert well to HTML and saves all graphics etc as separate .jpg files. Word 97 can read HTML files and save them as standard .doc files suitable for the Word 8 marking template. This may need a conversion option to be installed from the Office 97 CD.

Caveat: There is a catch which is why this needs discussion before being used - the Word (.doc) file expects that all the graphics are still present as .jpg files with the original names in the same directory.

Technique: The technique I am trying is to get the student to send the .htm file plus a zipped archive containing all the graphics through the e-TMA system. This keeps the number of files below 9 and allows me to unzip them and save them with their original names. The .htm file is opened in Word 97 without using the marking tool and immediately saved in Word (.doc)format. Only the Word (.doc) file and the original zipped archive containing the (unchanged) graphics needs to be returned. The student will need to unzips them into a working directory along with the .doc file and view the marking using the WordViewer. It would be prudent to note what has been done in the comments on the PT3 form so Monitors can apply the same technique.

Wider application: I hope this technique will have wider application to other Office suites and could in the future enable students to use free web authoring tools instead of expensive and short lived and bloated word processors. Word 6 has Office Assistances available to handle HTML but whether the end result would be compatible with the Word 6 marking tool is an open question. Any feedback welcome.

This technique and many of the others above were suggested and developed by Peter Curtis.

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.