Professor Sarah Hodges utilised podcasting as an assessment tool for a year-long core History module, called ‘Making of the Modern World’. Students were tasked with creating a 15-minute podcast on topics related to representations of race and slavery online, in museums and in literature. They were also expected to provide a bibliography for their podcasts, which encouraged the students to think about how their podcast topics related to the module as a whole and made their work easier to assess. The podcast assessment was the third of four assessments on this module, representing 40% of the students’ overall mark.

The aims of the podcast assessment were to encourage students to think about how to communicate complex ideas clearly in an accessible and engaging style and format, and sharpen their skills in reaching audiences that lie beyond the world of formal scholarship, while still using the tools of a degree-level historian. It also helped students to understand the opportunities and challenges of the podcast format for historians, especially those seeking to engage with contemporary issues.