While eMarking Assistant is best placed to mark or grade assignments that have been prepared using Microsoft Word is can also be used to mark other types of assignments e.g.

• electronic assignments presented in other ways e.g. web pages, discussion forums, portfolios, PDF documents
• physical assignments or performances

There are many advantages to marking these items digitally e.g.

• students submit a cover page for the assignment containing the relevant document
• the marked and the original assignment are stored for audit purposes
• the feedback can contain a variety of media
• students can be asked to resubmit additional materials
• the student receives the feedback in the Learning Management System

Some strategies that are useful when marking items that are not in Word are:

• copy the document and paste it into a feedback document so you can use Word’s tools or insert comments into the item. Remember that the formatting may change and you should be referring to the original item and only inserting your comments into the copied version. If you right click > Paste options > Keep text only (T) this will operate much faster.
• copy a screen shoot of part of the document and then paste it into a feedback document so you can annotate or comment on it
• paste the rubric into a feedback document
• take photos of the performance or physical items and annotate these in the Word feedback item

The following video demonstrates some ways of doing this