Delivery and assessment issues involved in very large group teaching

This paper describes the delivery and assessment of a module in Accounting and Finance studied by 310 students in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. The student group is diverse in terms of degree programme, nationality, age and academic discipline. Blackboard, a web-based managed learning environment (MLE) was used to support lectures. The Speedwell multiple choice examination system was used for summative assessment. There are many pedagogical and resource issues associated with very large group teaching. These relate to the delivery of course materials, student support and assessment. Learning resources are provided through Blackboard using the following headings: administrative information, staff details, notes, tutorial examples and web links. A variety of file formats are used. These include rich text format, Excel spreadsheets, Adobe PDF, HTML and PowerPoint presentations. The use of web-based technology allows applications such as spreadsheets to be provided through browser plug-ins. These have been successfully used to support case-studies in capital budgeting and the analysis of accounts. Students studying the module accessed the system more than 30000 times during the Semester. Automated summative assessment provides powerful statistical tools and includes comprehensive procedures with good traceability. The use of the managed learning environments and multiple choice assessment are evaluated and some guidelines to assist course developers are proposed.