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Guidance in Marking
using the ETMA system
  1. Introduction and Background
  2. Strengths and Weaknesses of Electronic marking
  3. Before Term Starts.
  4. Getting off to the Right Start with your students
  5. Organising ready for the First TMAs
  6. Using the ETMA system
  7. Collecting the ETMAs
  8. Checking the TMAs
  9. Marking the Scripts
  10. The Word Viewer - How the student will see your marking
  11. Returning the ETMAs
  12. Appendix 1 - Guidance to Students for ETMA preparation
  13. Appendix 2 - Styles
  14. Appendix 3 - Marking Tool 2000

1. Introduction

We produced a Guide to "Painless ETMA Preparation" for Students shortly after Pauline started marking M206. It was regularly updated as we gained experience and we also obtained a lot of feedback from Students and , in particular, tips from other Tutors. A number of our hints were incorporated into the OU "Using the Electronic TMAs System - a student Guide to ETMAs" after the first year. As time went on it was extended to provide information on viewing the returned TMAs and some notes on how to avoid problems in submission. The guide also contained much of interest to tutors in preparing for marking and returning the ETMAs and it now seems appropriate to separate out the sections more appropriate to Tutors and to Students. That does not mean that there is no need for good communication and cooperation between Tutors and Students, it is crucial, and they need to see both sides of the task. With cooperation the system works very well. In the four years only one of my students has been unable to participate and one less than willing and also none withdrew from the ETMA pilot.

A new marking tool was introduced last year and information on exploiting it is in Appendix 3 - Marking Tool 2000 to allow it to be updated easily as our experience grows. The first impressions were good and a number of teething problems have been sorted out. Check this section for updates frequently. Much of the material specific to the earlier template based marking tools has been removed as no new tutor is likely to use them.

2. Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths: Electronic marking has many strengths which benefit both the student and the tutor. Our experience is that, in a similar time, one can give more specific and legible feedback than marking up a paper text. Where common problems occur it is easy to paste in notes or use other features of the ETMA marking tool to reference them. It is also easier to ensure that the marking is uniform - how many tutors find that after marking half the TMAs that they have gained some more insight and ought to go back. With electronic marking one can mark many TMAs in parallel and also quickly go back and paste in extra notes or change a single part-mark without modifying the PT3 etc. It also leads to a faster turnaround which is valuable on courses where TMA and Tutorial dates are too close. The cycle is reduced by at least three days in the post plus the turnaround at Milton Keynes typically saving a week overall. It has encouraged many of my students to send in their TMAs early and on one occasion I had almost every TMA in and marked by the cutoff ready to send out at midnight.

Weaknesses:There are also weaknesses which can not be ignored - it is much more difficult to mark in the margins of other activities: on the train, at lunchtime in the office or the hotel room at night. The marking tool needs a powerful machine with specific software loaded so marking at work is nearly impossible - unauthorized use of Civil Service machines for paid work would have been an automatic disciplinary offence for my staff, as would loading software or even document files - most firms and even Universities must be the same. Laptops are slower and do not have the large displays needed for efficient marking and are more difficult to keep up to date for viruses. The other area of which can arguably be regarded as a weakness is that electronic marking needs discipline to avoid doing more than is required - one can deliver more value in the same time but there is a temptation to go further than one would ever do on paper.

3. Before Term Starts

Before the start of term and certainly before you need to speak to students from a position of knowledge you need to get set up for electronic marking - ideally as soon as you have your contract. Existing tutors will need to review what they have and what is needed by the course, both hardware and for software. New tutors need to decide how they will operate and what new software and hardware has to be purchased before they start to set up. The OU electronic marking uses largely standard software but loading any software does have implications and if you already have some of the software its configuration will need to be changed. In some cases it is changed automatically and without you knowing - this further precludes use of work machines.

Hardware Requirements

General hardware requirements: You need suitable hardware if you are going to be able to mark efficiently. We have downloaded TMAs, marked them and uploaded on a Libretto 50CT which is a tiny laptop with a 75 Mhz processor, 16 Mbytes RAM and a 640x480 6.2 inch screen - it is more difficult and one pays a penalty of 15-20 minutes per TMA. We used to use a 120 Mhz pentium with lots of memory and 15 inch screen - even that is painfully slow for marking tools which run in Visual Basic within Word 97. A 15 inch screen at 800x640 does not really allow working with several Windows visible so time is taken swapping between Windows and in Cut and Paste versus Dragging. A 17inch screen or bigger will just allow working at 1024 resolution with multiple Windows, which would save another few minutes and make life much easier. Modem speed is not an issue as the files are compressed 28.8 Kbaud is fine and even 9.6 Kbaud over a mobile telephone link has proved acceptable at weekend prices as all the files are zipped (typical downloads of 5 TMAs are 400Kbytes) although courses with many screen dumps have large files.

Hardware requirements for Word 2000 tool The Word 2000 marking tool is in many ways less demanding than the old Word 97 tool which recalculated all the part marks every time you entered one.The speed of operation is considerably improved and many of the workrounds mentioned in earlier versions of this guide are no longer needed. The tool runs with a largish fixed Window which is always on-top. It has an option to sit this alongside the Window in which you are marking but this means that you must have at least a 1024 x 786 screen which means that 17 inch is marginal and a very expensive 19" monitor is required. The alternative is to minimise the marking window most of the time and lose the ability to use ticks or drag it almost off the bottom edge just leaving it's toolbar in sight. One still needs a 15/17 inch screen to do that.

Summary: In summary with an older P120 class machine with Office/Word 97 you will probably not do as good a job as on paper in the same time and will feel dissatisfied, however in 5-10 minutes extra you can provide a lot more value to the student. With the higher specification machine you and your students will be well satisfied and it will take no longer than on paper. The new marking tool does not seem to need so much processor speed but has an always-on-top marking screen so you need a larger monitor. Given a choice put your money into processor power and a good monitor rather than upgrade your modem. On-the-road you can get away with a much lower specification but at a price in time.

Software requirements

You will need a number of pieces of software on your machine to carry out electronic marking. The marking tool only works alongside Microsoft Word 97 or 2000 There were Word 6 versions of the old template marking tool running under Windows 3.1 but it was very difficult to mark students work converted from Word 97 or other current Word processors - do not even think of trying, 95% of my students now use Office 97 or 2000. Expect a 50% minimum increase in times if you have to sort out conversions through Word 6 and you may never be able to sort out some drawings even then. Your first essential step is to obtain Word 97/2000 either stand alone or as part of Office 97 or Word 2000 and load it. Remember that you can get a Student licence for Office 2000 Pro for 25% of the cost normally paid or get Works 2000 which has Word 2000 included for one third of the cost of a standalone Word 2000! Word 2000, part of Office 2000 which is loaded on many up market machines also brings new facilities but the file formats remain the same. There is a check box in Word 2000 which forces Word 97 compatibility by removing access to the new facilities - students must be actively encouraged to do that if the Tutor is using Word 97.

You will also need several utilities.

WinZip: You will need a utility to handle the Compressed Archives (Zipped) for downloaded ETMAs. The best Zip utility is WinZip 8.0 which is Y2K compliant - earlier versions to 7.0 SR-1 may not be - they are alleged to display dates after the year 2000 incorrectly. It costs a few pounds to register - upgrades from earlier licensed versions, as issued by the OU to selected tutors, are free. Winzip integrates into the Windows system extending the context sensitive menus on a Right Clicks and within Windows Explorer making its use very easy and quick.It can be obtained from http://www.winzip.com if your course does not provide it. We have written an expose on Zipped files, archives and the use of Winzip which you may find useful. The only caution is that you should not load Stuffit at the same time - we found interactions. See our page File Types and Associations in Windows 95/98 - what you should know before installing any software.

Word Viewer: You will probably do well to load the Word Viewer which many students will use to view the marked TMAs. The display will be significantly different from what you see in the tool and you may like to have the ability to have a Students Eye View if they ask you any questions. It is best to get all this over with before you start. In fact, if you have a choice load it before Word 97 - if you load it after make sure you look at the questions it asks and keep the document association (.doc) with Word. Microsoft Word does need some configuration before and during your use it for marking. You also need to check that you have an up to date version as there have been a number of patches. Recent purchases will have a service pack installed (SR-1) which corrects a serious problem for those using the ETMA system. The first versions of Word 97 without the service pack do not correctly output in Word 6 format - it is in fact RTF format which does not support full graphics. This is not so much an issue if students use the Word Viewer and you return the TMAs in Word 97 format but there is always someone who has to be different. You also need the service pack to download the updates if you want to make Office 97 Y2K compliant (SR-2) There is a patch available on the Microsoft Site if you do not have SR-1 - 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!)

Configuring Word 97 and 2000

There are a number of options in Word 97 and 2000 which either you need to set up or in some cases are changed by the marking template and not restored.

View - Page Layout .The first and most basic setting is the View - this is either set by the dropdown View menu or there is usually a tiny set of icons in the bottom left of the window alongside the scroll bar. You must be in Page Layout otherwise you will not see all the graphics. The mode often seems to revert to Normal when the template is opened or a file is reopened. This seems to catch people time after time.

User Information - Your name: You need to make sure your name is correct in Word as it shows on every insertion of information and annotation and is displayed in the "Bubbles" when one hovers over entries. It is set in Tools -> Options -> User Information Tag. It can otherwise be very embarrassing especially if it shows you are using somebody else's machine or software. Many tutors (and even staff) make similar mistakes and do not change the Author on documents they modify to provide teaching notes and in conference postings which can again show in "Bubbles" when one hovers over files - change it using File -> Properties -> Summary Tab.

Autocorrect:The Autocorrect options have severe effects on, in particular, Smalltalk code for M206. Word 97 and Word 2000 have a number of correction facilities which are turned on by default and will, for example, change (correct!) 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 students 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 marking tool to seriously lose credibility if changes are not noticed in their marking. It is possible to end up with all sorts of other odd changes and some of my marking was converted into copyright symbols and smileys by the Autocorrect settings - try typing (c) in Word 97 or 2000. If one notices the changes one can often go back and correct them individually but it is much better to turn the facilities off . Autocorrect is on the Tools drop down menu.

Fastsave: Most versions of Word have an option for fast saves. This has the disadvantage that the undo information is not garbage collected very well and file sizes can just keep increasing. The undo information that remains can be easily viewed and can be a severe security risk if, for example, tutor notes are edited to provide a post mortem. This feature is turned off by some versions of the marking tool during marking and by mistake not enabled so you may already be OK! (Information provided by Simon Dugmore). The safest way is to do a final Select All and Copy Paste into a new document - one file I received reduced 16x when I did that!

Backup copies: The new marking tool is much less sensitive to closing and saving files but I still recommend turning the Backup Copies option off on the same tab as Fastsave just in case, although it has never caused problems that I know about.

Word 2000 compatibility: There is a check box on the Tools -> Options -> Save Tab to force Word 97 compatibility by disabling the new facilities. This seems advisable when marking within the tool.

Other Advice: The Guidance notes include other advice on the optional features which need to be loaded with Word 97/2000 for each version of the Marking Tool.

Virus Checking

We have always been paranoid on virus checking and few would argue these days. You must have a good virus checker and keep it up to date and so must your students. We threaten to give 0 marks to any TMA which is infected - the official position is not clear but we are not prepared to risk cleaning a file to mark, even if it is possible. We have used McAfee Virus Scanners since we got the machines, initially as free evaluation editions but then licensed. McAfee scored as the best buy in Secure Computing magazine in the 1998 set of annual tests, narrowly overtaking Dr Solomon's which was generally accepted to be the standard against which all other virus checker should be judged. More recently Network Associates have bought McAfee and Dr Solomon's and combined the best features of both - the result was again best buy in Secure Computing's 1999 tests alongside Norton AntiVirus.We deliberately choose a checker different to the one the OU makes available to students (VET) it doubles the chances of identifying an infected file. The OU internally uses Dr Soloman's so again the layers of protection are enhanced.

Virus Checker Updates: Virus checkers need to be kept up to date. We used to load new data files at least every month and typically another 250 viruses were included every month. We now update weekly. We also run tests to ensure that it is configured correctly and detects test viruses after every update using the EICAR standard test virus. Do we get viruses sent to us by students and detect them? Yes. The most serious instance last year was with a student who had been forced to use a friends laptop because of problems with their own machine. It was not protected and had become infected with a macro virus and we were sent three infected files all of which McAfee detected. We relented in the circumstances and said we would accept clean copies if they could be provided but unfortunately by the time the student got back to the machine it had been wiped clean by the virus and all their work with it.

Risks of Self Extracting Zip Files: One particular hobby horse we have is the use of self Extracting Zip files. The OU unfortunately offers them on the ETMA system and the Word 2000 tool is optimised for their use. Some courses teams even use them in FirstClass. These make ideal trojans and also give virus checkers a very difficult task as the problem files are in a compressed archive. It is prudent not to execute any self extracting Zip file, even those delivered by the ETMA system without further checks.Right Click and Open them in WinZip - an option few people seem to be aware of - you can then Virus Check within WinZip. Stop press -McAfee is one of the few virus checkers which can look within a self extracting Zip file - the update was a 4.5 Mbyte download first available on 5th December 1999 to counter the latest Explorer.Zip family now in the wild.

4. Getting off to the Right Start with your Students

Working as a team: Arguably the most important thing of all with electronic marking is that you and your students must work together. I could easily generate a TMA which was a nightmare to mark efficiently and effectively - high caliber students do it without even trying by using the full suite of layout, formatting and drawing tools. They must be persuaded to think about the effects of even minor insertions you make into their text and the effects of their formatting and styles being converted to those of a marking tool. You need to make contact earlier than with paper TMAs to ensure that they start in the right direction. We open communication through conferences and/or email as soon as the students have access.

Initial Conference Postings: We ask them to post details of their Word Processor, Virus checking package (and when it was last updated) in a "I'm Here" thread. This means we know the potential problem areas with WP formats and it shames them into updating their virus checking - more on that latter. We then follow up with postings containing information on preparation of ETMAs - much of our material has migrated to the Student Guide but we still send it out and we have put it in an Appendix. We go online occasionally to check who has read them using conference History and add more postings if required. A few minutes spent in preparation and guidance saves hours latter. In our case we also point them to our web site at http://www.corinna1.freeserve.co.uk/pemcou.htm which contains more information than we can sensibly post into a conference - many do visit but it is more difficult to track.

TMA00: We try to issue our guidelines to ETMA preparation well before they start their first TMA and remind them a little latter at a time when they have started to prepare the first TMA. We also try to persuade them to make use of the facility to submit a test ETMA TMA00 to the system and to send a few lines of text from their WP within it. This enables them to find out about basic problems like passwords well in advance. Likewise at the tutors end it gives the opportunity to set up the file structure to receive the ETMAs and make sure that the downloading and returning to the student goes well. New Tutors should note that you can not test out the marking tool without an ETMA with a valid PT3, you may be able to persuade another tutor to send you one from a previous year. We try to enter a bit of text thanking them in the PT3 and put a few Ticks, comments and marks etc in the body so they see what will come back to them. This enables them to find out how to use the Word Viewer and discover how to display marks and other footnotes - we noted questions in the conferences on how to do that after the course had ended in 1999!

Other Early Guidance to Students on keeping file sizes low: It is in every bodies interest to keep the up and download times low so there are a few tricks to reduce the sizes of Word Files. Word keeps a lot of undo information and does not garbage collect well. This can grossly inflate the size of a file.

5. Organising ready for the First ETMA

The tutors guide has suggestions on how to set up a file structure for marking and suggests using the self extracting Zip files. We have a directory structure which allows easy back up to and we have all the OU files stored under My Teaching (like My Documents) with the next level folders being Course related and then an individual folder for each student with their username as folder name. Everyone will have their own preferences but it is certainly sensible to have a folder per student and relate the folder names to the student username which also forms part of the filenames. We have always had two more folders for the downloaded ETMAs and for our uploaded .zip archives and this structure is now advised by the OU. Those two folders containing downloaded and uploaded files have everything needed for audit and/or remarking so the other files can be deleted if space is at a premium. We archive those folders for at least a year.

6. Using the ETMA system

Tips on using the ETMA System: There are a number of points which regularly catch out both students and tutors that you need to be aware of:

Email submissions by Students should use Plain Text. You should advise students who are having problems that if they use the email submission route it is best to do so from the normal FirstClass software. If they 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, 98 and 2000 as well as other packages are not recognised by the ETMA system and they will get messages back saying you have sent too many attachments. The Students should also make sure that, if 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. The default is usually Binary although the FirstClass Web interface does not always do so. (Tip thanks to River~~) Some email packages allow long emails to be broken up to escape through firewalls. The ETMA system does not support this.

7. Collecting the ETMAs

We check the ETMA site every few days before a TMA is due and normally wait till we have a batch of 5 or 6 to download together - students do not trust the system and always seem to send in much earlier than by post. Downloading too many increases the risks of the TCP/IP link breaking, too few is not efficient. If your connection does break it is not a major problem - just immediately reconnect without leaving the screen and repeat it and it will just do it all again - you may have to select to overwrite the previous incomplete file. If you log out or change page the system tends to assume it all worked and the files disappear from the unmarked file screen. This is an inconvenience not a disaster - you can go and collect them as many times as you like from the screen which has the unmarked, marked and remarked TMAs - it also holds every version sent. The inconvenience is that you need their Student Number rather than their Username and have to select them all again and pick the correct version.

Versions: One often gets several versions if the student thinks they have had problems with email submission. The ability to have several versions is useful as sometimes the system gives problems and students email the TMA to us in frustration and go to ground - we have then been known to use the email submission route on their behalf knowing that even if they succeed there will be no problems. You just have to take care to collect and mark the correct one and whatever happens they will be able to pick up from the web site.

Dealing with the Downloaded Archives: We developed some quick methods for dealing with the Downloaded Archives in the days of the Word 97 tool. The Word 2000 tool is optimised for use of the self extracting Zip files and this section is less important unless you have problems and need to get back to the original files or need to clean up/convert files before marking. Having collected one or more Zip Archives, each of which containing another level of Archive for each student, we usually put them on the desktop in a corner and then open Windows Explorer in a Window the other side of the desktop. We open the first level with Winzip by double clicking which displays the second level of Zip Archives each with a name containing the students user name. We then open them in turn by a double click. We then drag all the files to the correct folder (a copy process automatically leaving the archive intact) and close down and do the same to the next archive. Winzip is quite happy opening successive screens when extracting nested Zip files so the whole thing only takes a couple of minutes. It is not the only way to do it but it is very quick and you can easily see what is going on. You can also double click on the File in the WinZip archive and it will open in Word (without the template) and this allows a quick look for problems in formats, layout etc. We then drag the top level archive we downloaded into the appropriate folder

8. Checking the ETMAs

We have always had a quick look at the scripts before starting to mark the first e-TMA to identify the worst incompatibilities This is even more important with the new tool as it more integrated with the e-TMA system and your directory structures so problems and solutions are best found before marking each group of scripts. We open them in turn in Word and make sure that they look OK using Page View (otherwise you see no graphics) and Print Preview (6 pages per screen) which gives a very fast check that nothing is seriously amiss. We do this by opening directly from the Winzip screens - remember Winzip allows you to open the self executable file - and checking in Word. If you see a message at the bottom "converting file formats" look very carefully at the results as it is from Word 6 or another WP. Check graphics in particular. Winzip is worth downloading for the ability to look inside its self extracting files (and allow you to virus check them) alone.

Common Problems with ETMAs

What to do if there are problems: Only a few ETMAs will have problems. One common one is that some students files are consistently 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. You do not discover until the first time you close their files in the template - it is better to find this out before you have spent a lot of time marking. There are two solutions and both are better applied before marking starts. Solutions are: The most common non-problem of all is that no drawings are visible in the tool Misplaced drawingsThe most serious problem is that the drawings are misplaced or completely lost. Misplaced drawings are common in files that have been converted between different Word Processor formats. The problems are at their worst when conversions are made via Word 6 from some other format. It can also happen when Styles or other formatting has been applied which changes in the marking template. The templates also set standard margins and other page formatting which means that page ends and drawing positions move - sometimes under text. The problem also occurs when the original question is copied by the student - OU staff often use the Mac version of word which uses styles which cause severe problems in the template when the student accidently uses them by editing the question! I have put a little more on in an Appendix on Styles

Sorting the Problems: The first trick is to open the original file in Word 97 without the template. Find it in the Zip Archive and double click and it will be opened - often you will find it is OK and the problems only come in the template. It is possible as a quick fix to keep this version open in one Window whilst marking in the template so you can see the mislaid drawings but make sure you say what you had to do so the student knows and any poor moderator has a chance!

If that does not help the following tips may help locate and cure conversion problems:

9. Marking the ETMA

General Considerations

When a tutor begins electronic marking it is best to start by computerising your best practice in marking TMAs on paper. Good practice for teaching has to be the basis for good electronic teaching. Then explore how the technology may enable even better feedback to students, yet still within the broad envelope of no more than 1 hour per script for marking.

Try and turn around TMAs as quickly as possible. Electronic TMAs should mean an enormous increase in turnaround speed (no postal delays), and the faster the students receive feedback, the more effective it is likely to be.

Marking the Scripts

It is important to make the most of opportunities to teach through written comments and to offer advice and support both on the assignment script and the PT3 assignment report form. Always try to add comments at the point where needed supplemented by end-of-question and end-of-script comments. I hardly ever use footnotes because students are less likely to read them than if the text is in the middle of their own work. Sometimes it is not possible to make comments within diagrams and screen captures, so you need to be very careful in explaining exactly where marks were lost, and how improvements could be made. Always phrase comments so that the student can see, and accept, how he or she might improve on their script and why.

I always mark in batches of TMAs and begin by marking all the Question 1s, then move on to Question 2 etc. The Word 97 marking tool chooses blue for comments but they display in the Word Viewer in Red - a very good colour. I generally do not use any special font but use whatever is in use by the student at the point where I am adding my comments. But I do remove italic and bold, if they are set. Ideally the font for programming comments should be that generally used by the course team in the TMA, so it matches the student's programming and also stands out compared with normal comments. Never use only capitals - it is regarded as shouting. For mathematics courses I sometimes use selective cut-and-paste from the TMA, the tutor notes, or my own notes. This is quick and easy with electronic marking. You can keep a separate copy of Word open in a Window to do this - the tool does not permit multiple TMAs to be open simultaneously. Some courses provide post-mortem handouts, or tutors use their own notes to generate handouts. I never provide the complete solution to students.

Peppering the script with ticks and crosses is no substitute for full, written comment. It doesn't take much longer to write "yes" "excellent" or "well done" than it does to use a tick. Mathematics scripts tend to be right, mostly right, or wrong - stronger students (scoring 90 to HU) may be quick to mark, with a lot of ticks and little in the way of errors. Good students need comments just as much as weaker ones - they may appreciate being pushed a little further than they have gone already, or shown alternative approaches. Weaker student needs to be prompted in a different way, and comments need to be encouraging, but also detailed enough for the student to revisit the TMA with the course material, and complete the questions where there had been mistakes. I usually show part marks in exactly the way they are awarded in the TMA question, even if they are always full marks. For good students, this is slower (but safer) than the alternative of assuming full marks, and just marking up the script whenever marks were lost.

Completing the PT3

The first part seen by the student is the PT3. So it is important that it gives the right impact. Scores are added automatically, so the only work for the tutor is in the writing of comments. I try and use a "sandwich" approach: begin with positive comments on the strong points of the TMA indicating, emphasizing and building upon its strengths; follow with constructive criticism if required, giving examples of areas for improvement and how to achieve this and round off on a high note of achievement. There is a lot of scope for really extensive comments from the tutor, but it is best limit comments so that they would fit on a normal paper PT3. Sometimes I add comments to the PT3 as I work through each question, but usually I write PT3 comments at the very end although this is slower because it involves re-reading the solutions. One benefit of the electronic TMA is that it is possible to build a collection of appropriate paragraphs, and cut and paste relevant ones onto each PT3. But there should still be personalised text too.

10. The Word Viewer - What the Student will see

When marking one has to take into account what the student will see and be prepared to advise them. The correct way for students 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 Word Viewer needs to be configured to display Hidden text by the student before the marks and annotations can be seen or printed - many students do not notice this point although it is stressed in their instructions : Unless this is done one will not see any of the Marks awarded or the Annotations made! In the case of Annotations Differences between the Marking Tool and the Viewer: 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 differences between looking at a marked TMA using the OU-supplied Word 97 Viewer (Marking tool in brackets) identified to date are: The above identified thanks to Gill Harrison.

The marking tools use the Reviewing features of Word to identify your changes. You can set up your copy of Word 97 and 2000 (and probably earlier versions) so that your comments and deletions display in the same colours as the Word 97 Viewer by Tools -> Options -> Track Changes tab. The 2000 Tool has the facility built in to change how you see comments and deletions. It is also possible to use some of the Reviewing features directly by Displaying the Reviewing Toolbar by Edit -> Toolbars -> Reviewing or adding them to your Toolbars. See the Marking Tool 2000 Appendix for more on these subjects

11. Returning the ETMAs

As implied earlier we like to mark in batches and return in batches once one is sure that the marking is uniform. The new Marking Tool 2000 makes this very easy to do and adds the PT3s and Zips everything up together to send. You only need Winzip to check or extract marked scripts at a later stage. We have seen no problems with the new tool and temporary files like the old tool had with .PPF files.

In addition to the information here you should note:

APPENDIX 1 - Advice on Layout to aid marking and feedback to Students

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:

APPENDIX 2 - More on Styles

The OU TMA questions 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. This means you have to 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.

"Styles" also causes problems to students with screen captures that either don't end up in the right place, or on top of one another when they paste them into a document with its roots in an OU document. A reasonable form of presentation can be created in this case if:

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

Appendix 3 - Using the Marking Tool 2000 Version 1.2.1 a8

Introduction: The new marking tool has made marking much easier but brought with it the need for changes in working practice and a new set of tips to get round problems and make it's use as efficient as possible. It is much more integrated with the overall e-TMA system and is most efficient when self extracting zip files are used for the downloading and extracted into a directory structure which the Tool recognises. As stated earlier we have considerable reservations about self extracting Zip files but the e-TMA system now has virus checking facilities and claims never to have let one slip through yet. The Tool also has the ability to package the marked scripts and create the Zip files and early troubles with speed and reliability seen to be overcome in the latest versions. Self training courses are provided. The following Tips are, as yet, in no particular order and reflect our experiences and obvious extensions of our existing hints - some have been tripped by the experiences of others reported in various conferences.

Repeat extractions and downloads: The self extracting zip files ask for a directory (folder) into which they expand. If you need to get a fresh copy of a students script from your downloaded file or you get a second copy for some reason from the e-TMA site you must take great care not to extract to the same directory - the tool overwrites any existing files including any work you have marked without asking. Either extract to a different directory or Open using Winzip by right clicking on the file and select Open with Winzip from the menu. you can then drag the file(s) you need to the correct directory or open documents directly to check their contents.

Download Filenames: The filenames automatically allocated for download archives from the e-TMA site uses the Tutor ID and date - if you download a second batch you will get a duplicate .zip or .exe file. Add a, b, c etc on the end if you expect to download several times.

Student provides multiple "document" files. The new tool opens Word and attaches the template and PT3 automatically so you have much less flexibility in handling a script which has been broken up. The correct solution is to ask him to resubmit using a single (but see above). If you wish to carry on you will need to find out or select (see below) the master file which the Tool selects for marking and then insert the contents of the other files before marking is started using a stand alone version of Word. Do not change the filenames as the e-TMA system tracks what it has sent and expects to receive - leave the other files there as well. The eTMA system does not care about the file extensions but it is very particular about the names of the files themselves, and will reject them if they are changed. File extensions are not currently tracked because .rtf files are converted to .doc files. Check it has all worked at the end.

Selecting the Master File used by the e-TMA system:Some versions of the Marking Tool 2000 allow one to Right Click the student's name in the main window (next to where it said 'unmarked') to change the choice of document for the marks to go on - Note you have to save and close the marking tool and go in again before marking the document. (Reported by Jana H.M. Colchester) .

Checking what the student gets: A complete end to end check can be made by downloading the marked e-TMA from the e-TMA site and opening in Word Viewer - new Tutors should try this a few times. Encourage the student to use the Word Viewer as there is great flexibility in Word on how "Reviewed" text is displayed and he may have a different setup!

Word processor documents which are compatible with Word 97/2000 but rejected by the tool: Again the ideal solution is to encourage or insist that the submissions are in Word 97/2000 but this is not an ideal world. It is reported that some formats which are normally acceptable will not open in the template. If this occurs then try opening a copy with a stand alone copy of Word 97/2000 (extract it a second time) and save it with the same filename as a Word 97/200 document. Open it up and see what damage the conversion has done (see the main sections on this). If acceptable replace the whole set of files and start the Marking Tool again.

Read the Tips, Tricks and Advice files provided with updates: There are a number of problems awaiting fixes identified at any point in time.

Let the tool finish each operation before starting another: Many of the problems identified seem to relate to parts of the tool and your activities getting out of step. This can be avoided if you let all parts of the tool complete their operations before you start another one including saving and opening of files and Windows.

Adding a Keyboard Shortcut to Insert Ticks: It is nice to run with the Scoring Window minimised and parked out of the way whilst reading the text and inserting comments if you have a small screen. This however removes access to the Tick button. The Tick is a standard symbol and it is possible to generate a keyboard shortcut to insert it - we have chosen Ctrl T which is a shortcut we do not use in Word and is easy to remember. Use the Insert Drop down menu and click Symbol. The Tick is in the Wingdings font on the bottom row near the right hand end. There is a button at the bottom marked Shortcut Key - you just press the key you choose (Cntr T) and click Assign and thats it. It by default is saved in your normal.dot template and will be available for evermore in Word.

Undoing changes in inserted comments and deletions: All version of the tool identify changes you have made and insertion by different colours, strikeouts and side bars. Mistakes are difficult to remove once they have slipped back in the "undo" list. The earlier tools allowed one to turn off the facilities (Revision Marks on/off) for a period to allow corrections to be made (via the drop down menus). This does not seem to be implemented in the new tool but can be accessed directly through the Review facilities in Word - you need to display the Review Toolbar by View -> Toolbars and click Reviewing. The Reviewing Toolbar has a button called Track Changes (about half way along - search for it by hovering over each one in turn). You can also add this Button to your own toolbars using Tools -> Customise -> Toolbars tab where you will find the button in the Tools Category. When you have found it drag it to where you want it in one of your own Toolbars and click Close. You can also add a button for Insert Comments in the same way if you use the facility a lot or leave the Reviewing Toolbar turned on if you have the space available. Experiment with turning Track Changes on and off on a training script rather than experiment on a real one.

Effects of Customisation: Customising the Toolbar and adding a keyboard shortcut for Ticks allows one to mark with the Scoring Screen minimised and parked until one adds part marks - this should transform your marking on a small screen. These are standard Word facilities so the impacts on the marking Tool should be minimal however they are unlikely to be supported by the Help Desk.

Work with small numbers of scripts and backup: Until the tool and techniques are fully understood and proven, work with small sets of scripts and back up occasionally by leaving the tool and copying the section of the directory (folder) structure you are using to somewhere safe.

Remember - a pessimist is an optimist with experience.

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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. Several Tips have been used with the permission of others and they are identified in the text.

The rights of Peter and Pauline Curtis to be identified as the Authors of this work are asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988.

Copyright © Peter and Pauline Curtis
Revision 2.10: 18th May, 2001