Assessment Feedback Using Comment Banks: A Useful Approach?

The workload of any academic can be challenging, with a plethora of activities and conflicting priorities. This paper provides an analysis of one of the most time-consuming of teaching roles; the assessment of student work. It begins with a literature review identifying the role of assessment and assessment feedback, and identifies best-practice in assessment feedback. A method of generating high quality feedback efficiently through the use of IT and comment banks has then been critiqued. The method proposed here has been trialled on a large cohort of students and feedback gleaned through two focus groups. Students demonstrated clear preference for feedback generated through the proposed method, and the time savings to academics are dramatic.