Generating and e-mailing feedback to students using MS Office

An MS-based system for generating and returning feedback to students has been utilised by tutors at Liverpool John Moores University (JMU). The technique uses Office 97 to generate feedback reports that can include the student’s mark, position in the class, and a series of statements selected from a bank of comments, inputted by the tutor. In addition to allowing feedback to be printed and distributed via e-mail, the software also reports the frequency with which particular comments were used. This valuable information can be used by students to direct their learning, and by tutors to inform future teaching strategies. The procedure is particularly suited to large classes and can make the process of returning feedback to students considerably less onerous. The operation of Version 8 of the software is described and the responses of staff and students to the procedure are reported.