T189 EMA Helper Online
www.t189.net
The T189 EMA Helper application is a simple Windows application that is designed to help you create an End of Module Assessment (EMA) zip file for subsequent submission to the Open University’s eTMA system. It’s use is entirely optional, (you can manually zip up your images and documents in any way you wish) but it is intended to help students who are unsure about building a PDF and zipping files.
As an added bonus when using it, it will always give a better quality slideshow than using Elements, which re-interpolates every picture before insertion even if it doesn’t need to. The helper doesn’t do this so pictures will retain full quality.
The application allows the student to select their ten images and a part 2 document for their EMA and it then builds the images in a PDF file and zips this with the part 2 answers document.
Click on Downloads above to download and install the program. After installation, run the program from the Start ... Programs ... T189 menu.
Simply browse for your part 2 document and continue to the next tab.
On the third tab, click “Create ZIP file from images and Part 2 document” and the program will produce an Acrobat file containing all the images in your panel and add that to a ZIP file with your part 2 document.
The total size of the ZIP file submitted for the EMA cannot exceed five megabytes and the size of the final ZIP file is displayed. If this is less than 5 Mb then this will be acceptable to the eTMA system.
Before you are ready to submit your ZIP file, you should check its contents are correct. To help you do this, click “Test ZIP File”.
3
Creating your EMA submission
The opening screen has ten slots for images, click on each slot to browse and load an image. In this screen-shot, only the eighth image still has to be loaded:
This will extract the files from the ZIP file into a temporary folder and opens the folder as in the example above (note it may appear different on your system depending on the operating system and your folder display preferences). A readme file (not part of the zip file) will be opened in your browser.
Clicking “Open ZIP folder” will simply open the folder containing the ZIP file.
As each image is loaded, the application checks that it is within the recommended size range both in pixel size and the amount of disk space the image file takes up.
If an image is too small, then you need to check that you have loaded the correct image (ie you are not using a thumbnail by mistake!). An image that is too small is never going to look as good to a marker as one that is bigger. Similarly, if the file is below about 50 Kb then it is unlikely to have good enough quality for the EMA.
If an image is too big then the program will offer to resize it for you by enabling a “Fix It” button for images that are too large. Simply click this button and a copy of the image will be resized to the recommended size range and used instead of your original image.
Alternatively, you can of course resize the image in Photoshop and reload it by clicking on the image thumbnail again.
Note: these image size warnings are advisory only. It is up to you whether you decide to change the sizes of your image. You can still submit the EMA regardless of what the program says about the image sizes.
However, the Open University impose a five megabyte limit on the total size of the zip file you can submit via the eTMA system. This is why the helper program gives advice about file sizes, to help you keep within this limit.
You can re-order the images in your submission by simply clicking and dragging the numbered column headers. Click the Remove button (with the “x”) if you change your mind and want to remove a file from your EMA list.
The program will remember the images loaded between each run.
The second tab allows you to select and load your Part 2 document:
The fourth tab simply lets you view the images in the same way as the markers will see them. Click on Show Slide Show and you will be able to navigate through your images with the mouse. By default, the instructions for exiting the slide show remain on the screen while the images are being displayed, but if you’d rather see your images without this reminder, uncheck the Keep slide show instructions ... Option on this tab. (Note that the markers do not see these in the slide show, whichever option you select).
When you are satisfied, you can submit the ZIP file the program created to the Open University using the normal eTMA web system. With your web browser, log into your OU student account student home page and navigate to the web page to submit your EMA.
Please note, although this program is supplied to help with the creation of the zip file, it is still your responsibility to check the contents of the ZIP file are correct before submission (just as it would be if you had used Winzip or any other tool to create it). In particular, please make sure you submit the ZIP file, not the PDF or another file.
Finally, please submit your ZIP file under assignment “30-EMA” by selecting this option (it will usually be the default) in the eTMA system web-site.
