eMarking Assistant works on any version of Office for Windows. It does not work on Microsoft Office for Macintosh. See the “Can I use eMarking Assistant on a Macintosh computer?” FAQ if you want to run eMarking Assistant on a Mac computer.
The eRubric component of eMarking Assistant is called Rubric-O-Matic and this works on both Macintosh and Windows versions of Microsoft Office (apart from Office 2008 for Macintosh).
If you do not have access to a Mac, you have two alternatives if you want to use the whole eMarking Assistant package:
- Several Macintosh computer users are using eMarking Assistant by running Boot Camp (included with most modern Macs) or Parallels on the Mac and then buying Windows and then buying a version of Office (Word) for Windows. Most educational institutions have a license with Microsoft that provides discounted versions of Windows and Office.
- An alternative is to buy a cheap Windows machine that has Word and then use the Windows version.
If you want to use only the eRubric component you can use the eRubric Assistant (free) package.
The reason eMarking Assistant is not available for the Mac:
Currently in VBA (the language eMarking or eRubric Assistant is written in) for the Macintosh it is impossible to highlight text in a document (e.g. the text you want to comment on) and then click another toolbar to insert a comment on the highlighted text (clicking the toolbar unhighlights the text). The technical term is that Mac VBA provides only modeless forms while the Windows version allows modeless and modal forms.
When eRubric Assistant (free) is being used on the Mac you can use function keys to select cells while on the Windows version you can use either function keys or a floating toolbar (a modeless form).