Can digital audio be used to give students quicker, better feedback on their work? That’s the central question for the ‘Sounds Good’ project.

Based at Leeds Metropolitan University, ‘Sounds Good’ is led by Bob Rotheram, National Teaching Fellow. It builds on Bob’s experimental work on a postgraduate programme, giving summative feedback on student assignments via MP3 sound files. This indicated benefits for students: comments which were more extensive, clearer, more personal and easily-accessible. Staff also benefited: saving time by speaking rather than writing the feedback. Students were very positive about it.

Between January and July 2008 a team of Leeds Met staff is investigating further, funded by the Users and Innovation programme of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). The focus is being widened to include formative and summative feedback, in various subjects, at different educational levels. The trials involve staff audio-recording comments on students’ coursework and delivering the feedback through email, a virtual learning environment and mobile devices such as MP3 players.

Project outputs will include:

1. •practice guidelines (written and as podcasts) on using digital audio to give feedback to students;
   

2. •advice on integrating digital audio feedback into a widely-used virtual learning environment (Blackboard Vista).