Regarding the emacs-mode installation, why don't you write your own
customization, provide your students with two files: 

        ocaml-customize.el
        ocaml-init.el

(The former file includes all customized commands.  The latter is only a few
lines long to load the former.) and tell them where to save
ocaml-customize.el and to append the content of ocaml-init.el at the end of
their ~/.emacs.el file. They need not know anything at all about emacs.

    Didier