UCLan vice-chancellor urges better feedback
Union welcomes McVicar stance on improving assignment feedback
The vice-chancellor of UCLan has spoken out in his latest video cast to university staff about the level of student dissatisfaction over assignment feedback.
The Union's former Education officer had brought to issue to Malcolm McVicar's attention after a campaign called The Good, The Bad & The Feedback collected the experiences of hundreds of students about the level of feedback they received and these were presented to the senior management team at the University.
 |
| Malcolm McVicar spoke about student assignment feedback during his video cast to UCLan staff |
McVicar said: "A recent campaign by the Students’ Union identified that just over one third of our students are dissatisfied with the feedback they receive on assessments, an issue that some Universities have chosen to ignore.
"At UCLan, however, we are working hard with the Students’ Union to ensure that the concerns students have raised are responded to effectively and that all academic staff have access to the some of the latest innovative feedback methods available. The Learning Development Unit is working on a number of projects to enable staff to enhance their feedback methods, in written, oral and video form."
Former Education officer Sarah Delli-Colli welcomed the move from the vice-chancellor to do something about the issue.
She said: "The fact that the vice-chancellor has spoken out publicly about the issue of feedback shows that the University are dedicated to tackling this problem and will be working with the Students' Union to do so.
"This really gives strength to The Good, The Bad and The Feedback campaign which we ran in the Students' Union and means that we now have a place to go forward and really make sure that students views are represented.
"The University clearly wants to listen to its students so we are going to make sure that they hear. This is also good as it shows that when students tell us something, we act on it and do something about it; in this case, getting your vice chancellor involved and aware."
The vice-chancellor in his video cast also outlined the new and innovative methods that the University is exploring to improve the level of feedback given to students after completing assignments.
He said of the three projects currently being worked on: "The Student's Guide to Assessment - entitled This Way Up - which was written by students for students and aims to raise awareness of HE approaches and equip them with information about assessment methods and the feedback they receive.
"The Feedback 5 project is working towards offering students timely audio feedback through personalised podcasts. 5 Academics in every School have been offered a portable audio device to enable the recording and delivery of verbal feedback. Pilot users will report on their findings during the UCLan University Conference in June.
"Video feedback is another innovative way of giving students useful information about their work and, where it is appropriate, software is now in place to allow staff to make desktop video recordings which students can access through eLearn."
The Good, The Bad & The Feedback campaign was launched in October 2008 in response to the findings of the National Student Survey 2008 that found 43 per cent of UCLan students were unhappy with the promptness of assignment feedback and the level of detail varied greatly by course.
Related stories:
Assignment feedback campaign prompts university action
Week of action grows support for feedback campaign
Survey findings show 43 per cent of students disatisfied with feedback
15,000 word student voice report delivered
02 March 2009
