From blogs to vlogs: alternative assessments explained

Academic posters

Delivering a presentation using an academic poster is similar to the traditional presentation format, where you prepare PowerPoint slides and talk through a few key points. Here, instead, you will design a poster filled with your content. It’s important to consider which points you think are the most important to put on your poster, and to ensure these points are appropriately pitched for your audience. Think about how much they already know on the subject and how best to attract their attention to your poster.

Making sure your poster looks good is essential. For example, it’s going to be difficult to read if the text is too small. You can find some top tips on developing an academic poster on our Presentations & Group Work webpage. You might also find our Designing Posters with Publisher worksheet helpful for further guidance.

Blogs and vlogs

Blogs are informal online discussion or opinion-based pieces. They can include text as well as images, videos and links to other websites, and they usually have a space where external users can comment on the piece publicly.

A vlog, or ‘video blog’, generally has a similar style to a blog but is captured by video instead of text. Creating a vlog for your assignment is likely to involve you giving a commentary on a given topic. You should ensure you check your module handbook for exact details on how to deliver your vlog. It’s important to plan the content before you start recording, just as you would when delivering a presentation. Our Presentation Plan and Practice Worksheet can be useful for helping you get your ideas down on paper. 

Book reviews

Book reviews involve critiquing a particular book and giving your own evaluation on how well the book meets its intended aims. You should avoid only giving a description of the content and focus instead on what the purpose of the book is, how it has been written and who it’s for, and its strengths and weaknesses. Our REVIEW Sources Checklist and CRAAP Test Worksheet will give you an idea about what to look out for when you’re critiquing a book, or any other form of information.  

Critically reflective journals

Critically reflective journals document what you’ve learned about a particular experience, link your experience to theory and literature, and consider what you will do going forward. They are really common in health care and education but are becoming increasingly popular in other subjects too, like politics and built environment.

The reflective journal is likely to be different from other types of academic writing you’ve done before; it uses a mixture of first and third person, is based on your own experiences and links those experiences with literature from your subject area. You might be asked to use a specific reflective writing model, e.g. Gibbs or Kolb, which will help you structure your writing. Our Reflective Writing Models worksheet outlines some of the more popular ones and you can find more information on our Reflective Writing webpage.

Building on feedback

Remember, no matter what type of assessment you do, you will always receive feedback from your tutor. It’s important to take that feedback on board and act on it, making changes where necessary. Our Building on Feedback webpage helps to break down the feedback you’ve been given and gives advice as to how you can develop your skills further.

The Library Academic Support Team can help you work out a plan for your assessment, whatever format you’re working on. To book a one-to-one appointment, complete the Get Help form.