for quite some time , especially the practical courses in biochemistry were deemed to be difficult amongst hamburg medical students . biochemistry is a very abstract subject many medical students have difficulties with . in order to increase the students interest and therewith the motivation for self - organised learning , we expanded the e - learning offer for biochemical courses at the university medical center hamburg - eppendorf ( uke ) in 2007 to include audio podcasts . for this , we relied on the most used journalistic format from radio broadcasting , the radio documentary ( see figure 1 ( fig . 1 ) ) . what is characteristic of the radio documentary is the interplay between host and original sounds . the focus is on the text of the host , running through the feature like a red thread . because of their authenticity , they are particularly credible and elaborate on what the host only touched upon . thanks to the new voice and often times a new acoustic environment , the feature becomes more lively and invites to continue listening , . many e - learning projects are initialised with the help of generous funding subsidies and can often not be continued once the funding is terminated . we are here presenting a cost - efficient project along with means of how to continue it with a long - term perspective . at the same time we are trying to answer the question whether audio podcasts in the shape of radio documentaries have some kind of expiry date . is the quality of the features still recognized in the same way after a longer useful time ? usually , students use scripts and textbooks to prepare for conducting and interpreting experiments in practical courses . the uke podcasts are intended to provide them with another interesting insight into the topic of the practical course and , in addition , strengthen their intrinsic motivation for learning . different groups of people are responsible for conducting the course , and they are all included with original sounds in the podcasts ( see figure 2 ( fig . 2 ) ) . the teacher explains the theoretical background , a technical assistant helps with the practical implementation . another group , not an integral part of the course but just as important as the others , are the clinicians , who illustrate the relevance of the conducted experiments with regards to patient care . the part of the host , which is central to the feature , is taken over by a student , who receives a  100 expense allowance per podcast at the uke . producing the podcasts , we paid attention to keeping the time burden as low as possible for all involved . at first , a student , a teacher , a technical assistant , and a clinician meet for an editorial conference in order to compile the themes of the text blocks assigned to the different speakers ( see figure 3 ( fig . each speaker role comprises two to three text blocks per feature , two to four minutes each . following the editorial conference , the text blocks are elaborated on independently on the basis of the guiding keywords assigned . the manuscript is double - checked by the teacher and then approved for recording which can be done independently at any time by the speakers . a conventional office desktop pc , the audio software audacity ( freeware ) , and a usb microphone ( around  50 ) are sufficient means for recording . finally , the host compiles the recorded text blocks to represent the completed feature using the software audacity . the audio podcasts were published on the e - learning platform  mephisto  hosted by the uke as well as in the cross - university podcast platform between 2007 and 2010 , eight podcasts have been framed for practical courses in biochemistry ( see table 1 ( tab . 1 ) ) . to address the question whether over time there is a change in quality to be noticed with regards to audio podcasts in the shape radio documentaries , the quality of the audio podcast is evaluated in a descending range from one to six with regards to listening experience , structure ( i.e. the distribution of speaker roles ) , topicality , feature length , and overall satisfaction . apart from their gender , probands indicated whether they listened to the podcast during the corresponding course . proposals and criticism as well as general recommendations concerning the use of podcasts the questionnaire introduced in 2012 contained additional questions concerning usage and benefits of audio podcasts ( see tables 2 ( tab . , the questionnaire was distributed amongst third semester students in practical courses in biochemistry at the uke . the independent samples t - test   is used as a method of inference statistics to test for differences in podcast quality ( =0.05 ) between 2008 and 2012 . the individual podcasts have been extensively used by both students of the uke and the interested public . 1 ) ) exceed by far the number of medical students in hamburg ( close to 400 per year ) . unfortunately , it is impossible to distinguish between accesses from students and from other users . thus , from these figures we can not draw any conclusions on our primary target group . we have no explanation for the extremely high access numbers for the  blood glucose  podcast . maybe it was used by many diabetics as a means of informing themselves about their disease . despite their very specialised contents , the features on lipoproteins  ,  enzymes  , and  blood glucose  have been among the five  best liked  ( accessed most often ) and five  best  ( according to listener evaluation ) on podcampus . in 2008 , the biochemistry podcast practical course on lipoproteins at the university medical center hamburg - eppendorf  was elected from a group of 50 audio and video podcasts among the 10 finalists of a nation - wide podcast competition for universities and scientific institutions via online voting . in 2008 , 323 third semester students participated in the anonymized audio podcast evaluation ; in 2012 it was 360 students ( see table 2 ( tab . , a much higher percentage of males ( 52% ) had listened to the podcasts compared to females ( 32% ) . in 2012 , usage clearly declined in both genders : of the 360 students questioned only 8% stated that they had listened to the podcasts offered on practical courses in biochemistry . 37% of the participants stated explicitly in their free - text comments that they had not been aware of the podcast offer , probably this applied to most other participants as well . of the 331 students who in 2012 had not listened to the podcasts , 57 wished for podcasts on additional topics from biochemistry , 24% wished for a clearer announcement of the podcast offer in the future . evaluation of the podcasts in the shape of the radio documentary was both times very positive ( see figure 4 ( fig . the total satisfaction was in both 2008 and 2012 m = 2.1 , which is to be interpreted as good . comparing the marks of quality looking at the two times of survey , only the item topicality shows a significant difference at a p - level < 0.05 . the evaluation of the uses of podcasts in 2012 showed that 57% of those questioned use the podcasts to prepare for the practical course . at least 27% use them for a general understanding of biochemical contents . with just 7% , usage for recapitulating the content of the practical course was a rather minor motivation ( see table 3 ( tab . the use of podcasts for preparation of the course , the following written examination , and the understanding of lesson contents was evaluated similarly by the students ( see table 4 ( tab . involving students , podcasts in the shape of the radio documentary can be produced to support classroom teaching with little expenses in terms of costs and time for the faculty . they are very popular with part of the students , which can be attributed to the emotional impact of the spoken word , but as well to the medium s being free from restrictions to time and place . even after a couple of years nonetheless , the number of listeners strongly declined after four years , probably due to lack of awareness amongst the students . upon their introduction , the podcasts had been promoted in lectures and seminars as well as via messages on the e - learning platform . this advertisement was missing in the following years , but seems to be necessary in order to advise interested students of the offer . in case of changes in the curriculum , podcasts can , thanks to the modular structure , easily be updated by just replacing outdated text blocks of individual speakers with new ones . beside practical courses in biochemistry , many other topics are imaginable , such as other courses , portraits of individual teachers ( http://www.podcampus.de/channels/67 ) , or interdisciplinary aspects of the faculty ( http://www.podcampus.de/channels/60 ; http://www.podcampus.de/channels/91 ) . in addition to their usage in blended learning , the podcasts are surprisingly often downloaded by the interested public , despite their specialised contents . in this way , they contribute to the positive visibility of biochemistry as a subject and of the medical faculty in hamburg , as is illustrated by the very good evaluations on podcampus and the mentioning by other universities , . we would like to thank all involved teachers , technical assistants , clinicians , and students for their support . at the beginning of the project , norvin kubik and annemarie seidel have especially contributed a lot to its success . in addition , we would like to thank anette stber and patrick peters of the multimedia kontor hamburg for their technical support in the early years .
introduction : audio podcasts are an e - learning format that may help to motivate students to deal with the contents of medical education more intensely . 
 we adopted a well - proven format from radio broadcasting , the radio documentary , to direct the listeners attention to information about practical courses in biochemistry over a period of 20 minutes at most . 
 information , original sounds , and a specific atmosphere allow listeners to perceive the contents intensely.method : in order to organise the production of the podcast as cost - efficient and least time - consuming as possible , a student , a teacher , a clinician , and a technical assistant compile the core themes of their respective text blocks in an editorial conference first . 
 after that , the speakers can elaborate on and record their blocks independently . 
 coordination is widely handled by the student . at two points of time , 
 the podcasts were evaluated by the medical students by means of a questionnaire.results : with little cost and time expenses , eight podcasts were produced . 
 they have been used by the students extensively and have also been evaluated very positively by non - student listeners . for long - term usage , a regular reference to the podcast offer 
 is required in the courses.conclusion : involving students , successful podcasts can be produced to support classroom teaching with little expenses and contribute to the external presentation of the medical faculty .