Public-facing communication

•  Writing specialist material for a wider audience is a useful employability skill. Well-written materials can be a showcase for future employers. 
• Blogging can increase writing confidence by requiring students to write more frequently, and to use writing as an aid to thinking (Farmer et al, 2008). 
• Any work created can be a resource for peers. Students reading each other’s blogs helps to build a learning community among course participants (in Farmer et al, 2008, students reported this as the most valuable aspect), and accelerate learning through seeing to others’ thinking as it develops (Mansouri and Piki, 2016).  If peer commentary is encouraged or required, it can enable quieter students to contribute to course debates.  
• Work created can be used as revision aids. 
• Different formats can allow for the presentation and discussion of a wider range of materials, including film, visuals and audio. 
• Public writing can bring students into contact and conversation with a wider community around a specific topic, including practitioners, academics, and members of the public 

• Any unfamiliar assessment can be stressful for students, and impact attainment. You can help through several approaches: introducing teaching activities which use similar skills; sharing examples of the outputs (at different levels of achievement, and with some commentary on their strengths and weaknesses); writing clear criteria and discussing/using them with students. If peers are expected to comment on one another's work, guidance on this should also be provided. 
• This assessment might disadvantage some students. Writing in a less formal style is a new skill for many students, particularly those with English as an additional language. 
• Regular writing requires student time (although blog tasks which directly relate to weekly readings can potentially increase student preparation). 
• Peer comments may need to carry weight to ensure participation (Mansouri and Tiki, 2017), but this risks students contributing unhelpful “token” remarks. 
• If unfamiliar software is used, students will require support. 
• If writing publicly, students may experience negative comments from readers. 

• Consider the fairness of the word count: 10 posts of 300 words may be harder to generate than a 3000-word essay, as each post requires specific reading and an original argument.  
• Allow greater range of word count than is normal for essays is suitable for blog posts (allowing students to adapt to a new style of writing, and a variation in the length of posts is normal in blogs).  
• Decide on deadlines and mechanisms for checking blogs early on and share these with students (a single end-of-term deadline may lead students to write all posts in a short space of time).  
• Volume and frequency of writing may pose a challenge for students and staff. 
• Early feedback from an academic can ensure students work at the right level from near the start of the course 

• The content of blogs at the time of assessment should be captured (by copying at the time, or removing the capacity to edit the platform) in case of queries or appeals. 
• Generative AI could be used to create parts of this assessment output. Ensure students are aware of when Generative AI is permitted and useful, and when it cannot be used. You could help to ensure students are meeting the learning outcomes by focusing marking criteria on higher levels of critique and analysis 
• Grounding the assessment in aspects of the course not generally available (lectures, seminar discussions) may limit the unhelpful use of generative AI. 
• Check what a range of generative AI tools can do with any proposed essay questions, when setting the questions 

LSE Eden Centre Guidance on Blogging for learning and assessment.  

Department of Anthropology: Blog assesment, including marking criteria and examples of student responses 

Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science: Blog assessment 

Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science: Wikipedia editing assessment  

Eden Digital Education: CampusPress (blogging platform) staff guide 

Farmer, B., Yue, A. and Brooks, C. (2008) Using blogging for higher order learning in large cohort university teaching: A case study. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 24(2): 123–136.  

Mansouri, S. A., & Piki, A. (2015). An exploration into the impact of blogs on students’ learning: case studies in postgraduate business education. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 53(3), 260–273. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2014.997777  

Morris, N. J., Christie, H., & Barber, J. (2019). ‘It’s one of the first times I’ve felt fully engaged’: developing student engagement using blogging as a form of assessment. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 43(3), 343–361. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2019.1612862