Submitting Course Work on the Mac
The Open University is a world leader
in online learning. The ability to submit coursework and to receive
feedback via the internet
enables a part-time student to control their timetable in a remarkably
flexible way. Unfortunately, the standardisation of these facilities
around the Windows computer platform can present challenges to students
using other systems. The rules governing submission of work are based
upon Windows file standards, and a tutor is only obligated to mark work
which is presented in the required PC-compatible form. So although a
Mac can easily read and write the great majority of file standards on
OU courses, there is no support from the university for work presented
on the Mac, and there can be a fear in Mac users that any technical
problem which prevents their work being submitted or read correctly may
lead to an unmarked assessment. At the OU, work submitted on a Mac is
always "at your own risk". That said, there is really nothing to worry about for the great majority of cases. For a start, the eTMA system - the online tool for submitting OU coursework - is perfectly accessible on a Mac, because it uses a web browser. And OU course tutors can be wonderfully helpful and obliging - their personal discretion can smooth over many compatibility troubles regarding submission. First off, If you are worried about sending in your Mac files - and the LTS Student Helpdesk can only give you their usual "sorry, we don't support Macs" answer - then do ring your tutor. He/she may well have had Mac students before - in fact there's a chance they may even be a Mac user themselves!
Failing that, this page tries to address some common questions asked by Mac students submitting work at the OU - how do I submit my coursework electronically using my Mac? Will my tutor be able to read it? How do I access my marked assignments? It is written for the new student and switcher as well as more experienced mac users, so apologies if the following is a bit basic for you.
eTMA
Since 1997 the Open University has used an online submission system for
course work. For a large number of courses, work can also be
submitted by pen, paper and post - but the electronic Tutor Marked
Assessment system, or eTMA,
has become the principle means of delivery and return of work. 
The eTMA system on Mac OSX - available from a student's home desktop at http://students.open.ac.uk
As the eTMA is a web-based service - and the web is a cross-platform standard - the main issues of compatibility and transport are already solved. Mac browsers can handle the OU student website just fine, and a marked file can be downloaded to a Mac as easily as to a PC. The only tricky issues come with the format of the files we send or receive, and the way we compress or decompress those files.
This following guide therefore takes you through the 2 broad stages necessary to do OU work on your Mac:-
Part 1. Finding the right software to format your written work in the correct way.
Part 2. Compressing your formatted files for submission to the tutor via the eTMA system, and then receiving your marked work back.
Part 1: Producing your work in the right format
Hardware, File, and Text Formats
The Open University has established a minimum
standard of hardware and software for computer users at the
university. These include a standard for text documents - the virtual
paper upon which we write our assignments. This is clearly a rather
important piece of information for a student! The range of OU subjects is huge, and so requires different media to be delivered. Computer courses may require programming source code files, or presenting a web site in HTML. A music or language course might require aural or notation media specific to that course. Aware of this, the OU has provided a wonderfully helpful search facility, which allows a prospective student to see the computer requirements of a specific course. Unfortunately, all these requirements are for Windows-based systems, so Mac users are left none-the-wiser. As a general rule of thumb for hardware, presume that all but the oldest Macs (more than 6 years old?) - certainly those running OS X - are capable of fulfilling the power requirements of university computing.
So that's the hardware - what about software and file formats?
Course-specific software gets delivered by the university on disc, so you generally don't know what you'll be using till the postman comes. One thing you can be sure of - it'll be Windows-only. If there is specialist software for the course, the mac user must then find a mac equivalent - if one exists - or else seek out emulation or virtualisation solutions. That's why this site includes the Mac Compatibility List. Check out the requirements of your course there and, if it's not listed, leave a message on the Mac general conference at the university and some kind soul will try to help.
As well as any course-specific software CD, the university delivers a CD with more general internet software on it. This contains things such as the FirstClass conferencing software for using the OU's online campus, a PDF reader, etc. Very helpful indeed. In fact, it's pretty much all a student needs to get going.
A windows-using student, that is. The mac student needs to find replacements for all of these. The great news is that you can easily find these replacements - many included with the mac already, the rest free and/or easily available. See my "OU Online Apps for Macs" page for links to all the essentials.
Text formats
As regards text file formats, the standard requirement on pretty much
all the courses is for something termed "office software". Principally
a word processor. No surprise there - every computer-using student
needs a method to write text! The problem comes with the formatting -
the OU bases much of its text requirements on Microsoft
Word file formats. Although this format is ubiquitous worldwide, it
is a proprietary standard,
not an open one. It's also tied to a private commercial operating
system - not freely available. The OU broadly requires all the text
submitted to it for marking to be readable by a program running Word 97
for Windows. These are generally text files ending in the file
extension .doc.
(see below for .rtf) Also, many course tutors like to return a
student's document with specially
inserted comments and feedback at particular places in the
student's text. Other courses require special graphs or drawings and
diagrams to be inserted into text assignments. These comments,
diagrams, graphs, etc - and the instructions for executing them -
usually exploit features of the proprietary Windows office program,
rather than freely available and open software solutions. So OU users must buy and use only Microsoft Windows text products to do their essay work?
Thankfully, no. For some time the private .doc file format has been usable by programs that aren't Microsoft Word. Also, the Open University, mindful of limited student budgets, has very helpfully provided an alternative office program on its course software disc for people who don't have - or can't afford - MS Office. This is called StarOffice. Although MS Office will often (unsurprisingly) do a better job of writing its own file formats, StarOffice will be perfectly adequate. In many circumstances, the OU also permits use of the Microsoft .rtf file interchange format. This is a widely available means of exchanging documents between a huge range of different text programs. That means that you can use any text program that saves in .rtf format (including most Mac programs - see below). Lastly, the OU might even allow you to do some work in the most basic text editor - which every computer on the planet can read and write. It won't look pretty, but it may be all you have. Talk to your tutor about this possibility.
So StarOffice is the practical alternative to text formatting in MS Office? Well, for a Windows user. A Mac user must find Microsoft Office solutions of his own. Luckily they are plentiful, and often even free.
Office Software Solutions for Mac
The first thing a Mac-using student must do to submit their course work to the OU is to find a word processor that saves in a form readable by Word for Windows 97- 2003. Fortunately the Mac can take such things in its stride. Mac users have long lived in a world where most people use Windows, so Microsoft file accessibility has always been an issue. With the advent of the Internet, it was vital that Macs could send files that others could read. Where Windows presumes its own standards will do for all, the Mac OS has learned to be versatile. This versatility serves OU students very well.Though none of us relish parting with hard cash for additional software to do our work, sometimes it can be money well spent. The important thing is that we Mac users do have a choice. Therefore I will be covering both free and proprietary text software solutions, and leave the ultimate choice of which software to use to you. Try them all! Nearly all have downloadable demos, so you can experiment before you commit. And I apologise straight away if I miss some excellent programs out. This is just a brief tour of highlights. I'm sure there are other fine solutions I haven't mentioned.
IMPORTANT NOTE - The following office solutions involve converting files written on the mac to be readable by Word in Windows. Please be aware that this is not a perfect science. Swapping between file formats can sometimes cause formatting data in your document to be lost - especially if you are using fancy formatting or need to insert complicated tables and graphs. RTF conversion is particularly prone to formatting data loss. Basically, some programs will do translation more accurately than others. Where this is clear, I will try to point it out. But it all depends on what you need on your course - if you are only writing straight text reports or essays with a bit of basic styling, then all the solutions below should be fine. If you need complex equations, graphics, fonts, tables, whistles and bells then I strongly recommend that you thoroughly test the demos. You can even ask someone on OUSA Mac General to view test documents for you - or they can give more detailed advice about a certain program. But make sure you're getting what you need for your course.
Microsoft Office for Mac
Yes, that's right. Microsoft - in case you still haven't heard - do a version of their office suite for Macintosh. I find it amazing how many Windows users I've spoken to are still not aware of this simple fact! As it happens, Microsoft have been making software for the Mac for donkeys years. Fact - Microsoft is the largest Macintosh software developer outside of Apple itself! Fact - Microsoft don't do this out of the goodness of their hearts - the Mac business is a multi-million dollar profit for them. The Mac Business Unit at Microsoft - known as the MacBU, is full of great mac programmers, who have produced a Mac version of the Office suite which many believe is better than its Windows counterpart. Certainly better looking! I have used it myself for years, and I think it's great.
Now opinions in the Mac world can be rather divided about
Microsoft software. Some like it, some think it's bloated and buggy,
others think it's politically unsound, still others wouldn't be seen
dead with "the enemy's software" on their mac. All of these arguments
are for another time and place. I'm just here to tell you what MS
Office for Mac can do for an OU Mac student with an impending course
deadline. The answer is a great deal.
Office for Mac - as you might hope and expect - is totally compatible and interchangeable with its Windows counterpart. It reads and writes Word for Windows files perfectly. If you write your essay with this, you can guarantee that your tutor can read it. If you put fancy formatting in, it'll stay in. It also has all those little Microsoft graphing and drawing tools beloved of many OU courses, and tutor comments added to your returned documents show up as expected. With a few small exceptions, it does exactly what the Windows version does. That's the good news....
The bad news is that it'll cost you. There is a hot deal for students that certain users of this site have pointed out (thank you!) which offers a single license version of Office for only 34.70 pounds (Jan 2009). A very good deal. See here for details. If you want the least hassle, and don't mind paying for it, then I recommend MS Office for Mac for you.
But Microsoft Office isn't the only way to do your WinWord97-compatible essays on the mac. Here are some commercial alternatives you can try...
Scrivener
Scrivener is a writing
application that has taken the Macintosh World by storm in the last
couple of years - causing many a new user to replace the erstwhile
ubiquitous Word for much of their word crunching. It is the
creation of English author Keith Blount who taught himself cocoa
programming because he wanted to create a writing application that did
exactly what he wanted it to. Blount observed how people wrote
and designed Scrivener with this in mind. It is particularily
well-suited for the student as well as journalists and other writers.Scrivener begins with a project and each project has a binder with a draft section and a research section. Draft is text only and is where you keep your draft documents, but all the snippets of information that you gather for a project come under the research menu - and you can import text, pdfs, web pages, video, music, images and other types of research! You can have your whole TMA material in the research section of your project. While writing an answer to one question a great idea may come which involves another part of the project and this is simple to enter under "research". A "synopses" function allows you to create synopses of each piece of research or each draft document that can be displayed on "corkboard" or in "outline" mode.
Snapshots lets you catch a version of your draft that you
can roll back to if you want to go back to a previous version or use it
for reference.When it comes to writing your drafts you can go to split screen and access your research in the lower pane while doing your draft in the upper pane. And if you find that it is best to block out the rest of the world while you write there is a full screen mode too.
Although Scrivener has an export option that allows you to export in .doc format, I think most students would find it good to use it alongside a Word Processor like Word, Nisus Writer Pro or Pages (see below) for preparing your final submission of your TMA or ECA.
Scrivener is shareware and is available from Literature and Latte for the student price of £26.94 and that licence is for up to 3 computers in the same household. A 30 day trial is available and there is a good video of how to use Scrivener on that website.
Thanks to Brian Milson for the above.
ThinkFree Office
Download edition - 49.95 USDollars Think Free has been around for a while, and offers a Microsoft compatible suite for many platforms including Linux and the Mac. Note, the latest edition is only for users of Mac 10.4 and above.
ThinkFree has made an impressive suite, which reproduces MS files well, and saves in Word 97 format. It looks good, and is very similar in interface to Word - menu items are in the places you expect them to be. As well as word processing, it also includes spreadsheet and presentation software. The demo is for 30 days evaluation.
ThinkFree have also launched a snazzy online version, which features internet storage for your documents to be accessible anywhere! Check it out here.
Problems with ThinkFree? Well, one of them is speed. You see, ThinkFree gets its cross-platform versatility from the fact that it's written in the Java programming language. Java was designed to run happily on a variety of different computer platforms, but - for reasons too boring to go into here - it suffers from a performance penalty. If your Mac isn't a very fast one, then you'll find yourself waiting for a fair few seconds for the app to open, and for things to load. But once open, it'll work just fine. If you're the patient type, then you won't mind waiting for what is a keenly-priced MS Office replacement.
User reviews for ThinkFree can be seen here.
Mariner Write
Download edition - 49.95 USDollars Mariner has taken a different tack to ThinkFree, by ditching all those extra apps like a spreadsheet (available as a separate app) and presentation stuff, and focusing on a lean, mean word processor dedicated to the Mac. The result is an app that opens fast and looks great (screenshots here). It also doesn't slavishly follow Microsoft menu styles and layout like some apps - but still looks familiar enough to get around with.
Reading Word docs was easy, although it should be noted that it only saves to RTF, so fancy styles could suffer in transit from desk to tutor. Try it out first.
It's not the best value deal here - for the same price you get three apps from ThinkFree. But if you want a good looking product from a dedicated Mac developer, then this may be it. User reviews can be found here.
Nisus Writer
Pro edition (download) - 79 USDollars Express editon (download) - 45 USDollars
Nisus is a long-established name in mac software. 20 years in fact. What Nisus set out to do with their word processor is cut out the useless fluff and accentuate the professional functions. The result is a very lean and impressive program.
I was very impressed by the reading and writing of Word documents, which - even for complex formatting - was almost perfect. It's a very attractive program too (see screenshot gallery) exploiting the best of OS X, although they also do a version for OS9 users. Nice of them!
I couldn't find too much to fault with this one - it seems a very capable program, one that would be handy for an OU student looking for a fast and professional alternative to MS Office. Best of all, it has a downloadable demo, so do give it a try.
Apple Solutions
But hang on... aren't we missing a key Mac developer here? What about Apple? Don't the world's coolest software makers make a word processor for their own platform? Well, yes they do. It's called Pages, and is part of an office suite called iWork.iWork
From Apple Store for Education 58.65 UKPounds
iWork consists of three programs - a word processor called
Pages, presentation
software called Keynote
and a spreadsheet program called Numbers. It's Pages
that we're interested in here. Pages - like any good Apple software - looks gorgeous, and works perfectly on the hardware. It opens Word documents very well indeed (though it had a little trouble with my images), and shows tutor comments to the left of the screen in a particularly attractive and clear way (see screenshot here) - in fact, far better than using Microsoft comments!
It's not perfect - file translation isn't flawless, and Apple's individuality means that some MS-type functions are difficult to find on the menus, if they exist at all. But it's pretty good - and it's pretty cheap too, though not the cheapest.
If you've bought a Mac lately, then you'll have received a demo for iWork included in the software - otherwise you can download a demo to try.
If you're interested, have a word with students on Mac General who've got iWork, and they'll tell you how it goes.
Free Office Software
Yes, yes, it's all very well me droning on about various software solutions - but what if you're penniless after forking out for your new mac and that expensive Level 3 course? What if you don't want to go paying more money just to write an essay? Well, your luck may still be in. Thanks to Apple's move to OSX and UNIX, which opened it up to the wonders of open source software, there are now some alternatives to Microsoft Office that won't cost you a penny.First a brief explanation for the novice, and a few important details. Open source software is developed by programmers all over the world who usually donate their talents for free. Yes, free. Purely for the benefit of others. The licenses that govern this software generally mean that anyone can use it, change it and pass it on without charge. Now, being non-commercial software, you may think that it'll all be pretty amateurish. Actually far from it. You may not know it, but you use such non-commercial software every time you do a google search, or contact most web servers! Not to mention the Firefox web browser, large parts of Safari, and the core of OS X itself!
That said, the thing to remember about these groups of programmers working on a particular app is that there's often only a few of them, and they're working in their spare time. They don't have the resources to do weeks of detailed software testing. So they rely on us to help test and perfect the software for them, by using the app and informing them of bugs when they show up.
What all this means for the OU student using these apps is that you can't expect perfection - such software is an ongoing improvement process. Be patient with it, and back up your work regularly in case of a crash. And remember - in a cynical world where everything has its price, this brilliant software is the nearest thing to a free lunch from a stranger you're ever going to get. Be thankful!
I'm going to focus on just two free office apps, as these are relatively mature, stable, quick to get hold of, and require the least fiddling with settings. There are more apps out there, so if you're adventurous, do some googling!
OpenOffice.Org
Cost - free
OpenOffice
is perhaps the most important
piece of free, Open Source desktop software around. Its history is
interesting, as it is an open spin-off of a commercial application -
none other than StarOffice, the very application that the the OU pays
for and sends to students as a backup to MS Office! (see above)
So why did Sun,
the makers of StarOffice, allow a free version to be made of their
commercial product? Answer - to benefit For a long time, OpenOffice
could not run natively on the Macintosh, requiring another app called X11
to work - it could be a bit fiddly to set up, and looked rather
like a
throwback to those old Eighties interfaces. But not any more.
OpenOffice 3 now runs natively on Intel Macs - it opens in a flash, and
it looks a lot better than
it did. It can be downloaded here.
It's a big from the rapid improvements
that all those clever open-source developers can make to it. StarOffice
was going nowhere as a private app, so Sun decided to set it free -
keeping StarOffice as a paid-for supported version that could reap the
benefits of OpenOffice's open improvements. So nowadays StarOffice is
actually based upon the free OpenOffice! The amateur spin-off is now
the commercial development leader.download, so make sure you have a fast connection.
OpenOffice is a very powerful suite of office programs, which has matured into a real alternative to proprietary solutions. It has been adopted by many firms worldwide, and is used by plenty of OU students. It opens and saves all the necessary file formats, and while it may not be as fancy as a paid-for MS or Apple product, you just can't complain about its price. If you want a free product with real professional power, then give OpenOffice a try.
NeoOffice
Cost - free, but optional donation requested.
OpenOffice
may be the biggest name in
free and Mac-native office suites for the Mac....but it wasn't the first. That accolade goes to
NeoOffice - which is actually based on
OpenOffice, but has been Mac-native for a lot longer. The NeoOffice
story goes back to the (recent) days when OpenOffice required X11 to
run on Macs (see above), and - even when OpenOffice did run - it looked like something
designed in a Stalinist tank factory ;-) So two very nice software
chaps decided that it just wouldn't do. They'd make a version of OpenOffice
for the Mac that didn't need
X11, and actually looked like
a Mac app. The result
is NeoOffice, and it's very nice indeed. The first thing you'll notice about NeoOffice is that it takes a while to launch, just like ThinkFree Office (see above). That's because it's built - like ThinkFree - on Java. So be patient. Unlike ThinkFree, time is not money with NeoOffice. Once it's loaded it'll be fine.
NeoOffice is not perfect at MS compatibility - it had some trouble importing mathematical symbols from my Word document - but it's pretty darned good, and certainly no worse than some of the paid-for programs above. It's also extremely extensive, being a total office software suite with five separate applications. NeoOffice - like its OpenOffice cousin - follows the MS Office model quite closely, so functions and menus you find in Word will probably be here. NeoOffice saves documents in not one but three MS Word formats - so it's impressively versatile too. It exported my test document brilliantly.
All in all, NeoOffice is not fast - especially if your Mac isn't new - but otherwise it's a small miracle. And remember, it's been on the Mac for a while, so it's matured nicely. If you want power without cost, then you simply have to try it. Be careful though - the download is a whopping 146 MB! If your connection is a slow one, I recommend making a cup of tea (or five) while it arrives.
Part 2: Compressing and packaging your files for submission and
return
Okay, so now you've got the software to produce your course work in a
way that your tutor can read. The next step is to send it to him in the
right kind of package. This will involve saving in the right format,
compressing the file for storage on the OU servers - if necessary
bunching multiple files up into one archive - and then sending it. The Open University have a wonderful step by step guide for students who need to submit using the eTMA system, which I recommend you take a look at. It's full of useful information about details of the system which is relevant to all students, except that - you guessed it - all technical information is Windows-based. Below I set out an alternative Mac-based procedure for key sections of their instructions - I recommend that you read the OU pages, then refer back to the instructions below for any specific Mac-related equivalent of the steps that they link to.
Preparing your computer - Cookies
The eTMA system requires "Cookies" to be enabled in your browser. To do this in the following Mac browsers:-Safari
1. Select "Preferences..." from the Safari menu.
2. In the window that opens, select the "Security" icon at the top.
3. A window will open like the one below:-
As you can see, you are able to accept cookies with restrictions that can limit their power to only those sites (like the OU) which you want. Select the option that suits you.
Firefox
1. Select "Preferences..." from the Firefox menu.
2. In the window that opens, select the "Privacy" icon at the top.
3. A window will open like the one below:-
Select to accept cookies.
Other browsers operate in a similar way - select preferences in the browser's menu and have a look around.
Preparing an eTMA - Saving your Document in Word Format
Just remember when saving your work that you need to save it in a Microsoft Word format (.doc file), or at very least in Rich Text Format (.rtf). All of the above programs (in Part 1) do this.1. From the File menu of your program, select "Save as..."
2. Select your preferred file format - as a rule of thumb "Word 97/2000/XP" is best, if available - otherwise "Word" or ".doc" format. Failing those two, save in RTF.
File Size Limits - Checking file sizes on the Mac
There is a limit on the file size that can be sent to the eTMA system. You may submit a single file of up to 2 Megabytes. That's a fair amount for a text file. But if you have multiple documents, then the total file size of a combined package must not exceed 2MB. Combined package? What's that?Well, what you have to do with most files going to the eTMA - even those that don't exceed 2MB - is compress them down first, so they don't take up too much space on the server. Imagine all those hundreds of combined student assessments clogging up the databanks of the OU, and you soon get the idea. You'd probably be okay sending a small file uncompressed, but it's good practice to compress them. Added to that, you very often have to send more than one document - or even a whole pile of them - like a series of reports, or a small website! Rather than trying to send several little files separately, what we do is combine them into a single archive, and then send it as a single compressed file. This file must still not exceed 2MB.
Now, there is a very long-established format in the PC world that is used to both compress files down and archive them into one collection. it's called Zip. This is what the OU requires us to use. More on Zip in a moment.
First you need a quick way to find the size of your files on the Mac, so you can check it's within limits. There are several ways, but the quickest is to right-click or control-click on the file. This brings up a little contextual menu. On this menu select "Get Info". This brings up a little window with lots of info on the file - including the file size. See here.
Creating a Zip File
Compressing a file or a folder using Zip - you'll be very glad to hear - is a built in function of Mac OS X. So you don't have to go trawling around paying for software solutions. If you use OS9, you will have to pick up some third-party software like MacZip, which is free to use.The first thing you need to do is prepare your files for zipping. Your course usually informs you in your TMA document of the required name for your Zipped archive - usually a combination of your name, id number or course number - something like "Joe_Bloggs_M999TMA04". So what you do is create a new folder on your Mac with the name "Joe_Bloggs_M999TMA04", and then put all your TMA files and subfolders inside. If you're only sending in a single file, then just name the file as above.
When you're sure you've got all you need, do the following :-
1. Right-click or control-click the new folder containing all the files, or the single file.
2. A contextual menu will pop up. Select "Create archive of "the_name_of_your_folder_or_file" "
3. The result will be a new single zipped file - created in the same place as your folder. The file will look like this:-
Notice the new .zip file identifier? Now, if you've sent multiple files they will all be packaged up nicely inside here. To test this, just double-click on the new file - it will automatically unzip (thank you OS X) , unwrapping a perfect new copy of the folder structure you've just compressed. This is what the tutor is hopefully going to do at the other end.
Did I say perfect copy? Well... almost perfect. MacOSX's zip facility has a funny little quirk that is basically harmless, but could be confusing to a tutor who only uses Windows. When we zip and unzip stuff on our Macs, one or two invisible files get included in the archive structure - most notably a file called _MACOSX. Now these are just additional to the files we wanted, and their absence would not affect the operation of the archive at all. They can't even be seen by our Macs! However, on a Windows machine which unzips our Mac file, these little extras do show up. That means a tutor who asked for only certain exact files to be sent, might get thrown by these additional redundant files. I find this a bit needless and irritating, and I wish Apple would fix it.
A perfect, quick and free solution to this is to use a wonderful little utility called YemuZip. You just open YemuZip, drop your file or folder onto the window, and - bang - a new zip file. But this time there are no hidden extra files in the archive when you're running Windows. Try it - it's great.
Now if you click on your new zip file and "get info" as described above, you should see that the file size has decreased due to the file or folder being compressed. But not necessarily. Some types of file compress better than others - in fact some hardly compress at all. So if the ultimate size of your assignment is large then don't necessarily trust that Zip will magically reduce all your files to a tiny compressed size. Be careful, and keep checking the zipped size.
Another great zipping solution is BetterZip, which isn't free (19.95 USD) but is very good value. Like YemuZip, it can strip unwanted gunk from mac files, but It offers a much more powerful archiving solution than YemuZip, and is wonderfully Mac-like and easy to use. If you want a fully-powered zip solution for your OU work, then take a look at BetterZip.
BetterZip allows you manage full zip
archives - as well as many other compression formats. It also enables
archive encryption.
Sending an eTMA via the website
Okay, so you're all ready and it's time for the moment of truth - sending your work in. Happily, the sending of your eTMA on the Mac shouldn't cause any problems, as you've already saved it in a compatible format and zipped it (see above). The actual eTMA mechanism is web-based - so anyone with a browser should be able to send their stuff in and receive it from the server. The instructions provided by the OU will therefore be perfectly adequate - but let me take you through it anyway:-Fire up your web browser and go to the eTMA website either via your StudentHome page at the OU, or directly from here.
The following window will appear in your browser:
Click on "Send TMA". This will open the following:
Step 1: Click on the 'select course' menu to select the required course for your submission.
Step 2: Make sure you pick your correct TMA number!
Step 3: Choose the file on your system to submit. This is the important step. When you click the 'Choose file' button the following type of window should open:
Make sure you navigate to your your correct zip file. When you've picked the right one, press the "Choose" button. The window should now look something like the following:
If you're happy, click "Send" - the following window will appear to ensure that you acknowledge the university's plagiarism policy:-
Press "OK" (unless you've cheated ;-)) Your file will now be uploaded to the OU server. Until you click this button, your work will not have been submitted. When your upload is complete, you should now see a receipt window that looks something like this:-
You can click "test" to check that your file looks like it should sitting on the OUs server. Do note down the receipt code number, as this will be important if there are any problems later regarding your submission.
That's it! - now get to the pub, you've worked hard enough!
Collecting a marked eTMA
The method is identical to the OU instructions here, but with one small difference which I'll explain below.When your TMA is ready for collection, you will be informed by mail to your FirstClass mailbox. You simply:-
1. Go to the eTMA website like above. The Main eTMA page will appear like in the previous section - this time, click "Collect TMA".
2. If you are doing multiple courses, it'll ask which course you want to collect from - choose your course.
3. A window will open which should list your marked file and the mark you've been given. Next to this is a button labelled "collect". But don't press this just yet! (don't worry - if you did press it, you can just go back and start the process again)
4. Just above the button there is a frame labelled "step 2". In it you can choose which format to download your marked file in. You must choose "ZIP". The reason is that the default - called "self extract" - is actually a Windows format, and won't work.
5. Now click collect. You will be asked if you want to save the file and where. Choose where on your mac you want it and click save.
That's it!
Now root out the downloaded zip file on your mac and double-click it. It should open to produce a folder with the same name at the same location on your mac. When you open this folder you will generally see your document, duly marked, as well as a tutor document called a PT3 which contains a breakdown of your marks and some general comments. Here's one of my return folders:-
Inserted Comments
Now, if the tutor has included comments in your returned document (which many do) the important thing is to make sure you can see them. The word processing program you chose (see my reviews above) should have the ability to do this, but make sure you know how to enable this facility! Check the documentation, or speak to your tutor to check where his/her comments are and how to get hold of them. Sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed at how you can miss these hidden notes if you aren't looking for them (I speak from experience ;-))Summary
As you see, submitting and receiving work on the Mac is not too difficult - it just takes a bit of preparation and planning. But if things do go wrong, remember you can always get help at the wonderful OUSA Mac General FirstClass conference within the Open University's online campus. If you haven't yet found your way there then here's how to do it:-Starting from your FirstClass desktop....
click on the Open University shield icon -> OU Students Association icon -> OUSA Signpost icon -> scroll down to OUSA Mac General (if you are using FC Client, right click and "add to desktop" for quick future access)
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Page written by Stephen McGann, Teresa A. Flannery and Brian Milson - last amended January 2009