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Law Courseware: Big Bang or Damp Squib?
Robin Widdison , LLB, Barrister,
Director, Centre for Law and Computing, University of Durham<r.c.widdison@durham.ac.uk>
Copyright © 1995 Robin Widdison.
First Published in Web Journal of Current Legal Issues in association with Blackstone
Press Ltd.
Web JCLI | [1995] 4 Web JCLI | Download this file.
Contents
- Introduction
- What is Courseware?
- Why Use Courseware?
- What objections can be made to using Courseware?
- How should Courseware be used?
- Where next for Courseware?
- Conclusion
- What is Courseware?
Introduction
The Law Courseware Consortium (the Consortium) is about to release the first package of law courseware - newly christened 'Iolis' - to law schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. First impressions may be that one CD-ROM together with an introductory manual is not much to show for the investment of half a million pounds of Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) money. However, such first impressions are misleading. In fact, the CD-ROM contains a large amount of well-designed, up-to-date and useful 'second generation' courseware (Scott & Widdison, 1994), representing the work of over forty different academics (both authors and consultants) from thirty different law schools, not to mention the core staff of the Consortium itself.
What I plan to do in this piece is to pose some of the questions that are likely to be most frequently asked in law schools when they receive copies of the law courseware package. I shall then attempt to answer those questions.
What is Courseware?
Clearly, the best starting point is to describe what law courseware is. The courseware that is being distributed covers six different legal subjects. These are contract law, tort, criminal law, property law, constitutional and administrative law and European law. In addition, there is one 'service' course covering law for non-lawyers. Law courseware can best be thought of as comprising three separate components: (i) a large collection of workbooks; (ii) a resource book; and (iii) a scrapbook.
Each of the seven subjects consists of a set of workbooks. Each workbook is made up of a series of pages, each page containing either one of a range of interactive exercises developed for use by the authors or non-interactive descriptive text and graphics (Scott & Widdison, 1994).
The resource book is an electronic library. In it, the user will find full text versions of most of the key primary sources and some of the secondary sources that are used to teach the subject in question. The resource book is designed to be used in conjunction with the workbooks. Students can access case reports, statutory extracts, articles and other materials held in the resource book by clicking onto hypertext links - automatic gateways - which can be found on many of the pages in the workbooks. Alternatively, the resource book materials may be accessed directly, without the need to go via the workbook pages.
Lastly, the scrapbook can be used by the students not only for their own notes but also for extracts that they copy out of either the workbooks or the resource book.
Why Use Courseware?
Three groups will benefit directly from the use of law courseware. They are students, law teachers and the law schools themselves.
Students will find courseware easy, pleasant and convenient to use. As for ease of use, the courseware has been designed with: (i) an integrated front-end that provides users with an easy point of entry; (ii) a consistent, well-defined Windows 95-based interface; and (iii) a powerful system for navigating around the materials (Dale, 1994). Once students have become familiar with the basic look and feel of the workbooks and the resource book, they will have no difficulty finding and using each and every part of the courseware.
Students will also notice that the courseware is pleasant to use. The workbooks contain a wide variety of interactive exercises creating a stimulating environment in which students explore ideas and practice expressing themselves in private, without the feelings of embarrassment that might inhibit live performances in front of fellow students. If a law school is able to provide sufficient points of access to the courseware, students will be able to work through the materials in a relaxed way at their own pace. Also, the workbooks consist of more than just text. There are plenty of colourful multimedia features such as charts, diagrams, pictures, video clips and sound clips, all designed to make the courseware fun to use and thus to improve student motivation.
Finally, students will undoubtedly find the courseware convenient to use. As we have seen, the interface contains an integral scrapbook facility to aid note-taking. Given that entire extracts can copied out of the workbooks or the resource book and then pasted into the scrapbook, this must make for a considerable saving of effort. The resultant notes can then be printed out and/or stored in electronic form to be reused in connection, say, with essay writing. The fact that the resource book provides instant access to the full text versions of so many key primary sources means that students will be able to look up and use these materials without having to get up from the computer, go to the library and hunt for the paper-based versions of the relevant case reports or statutes. Use of the courseware will also give students more flexibility in respect of the time and place of study. Law schools may choose to make the materials available late into the evening, or even twenty-four hours a day, from any place on campus. Furthermore, possession of a personal computer together with a modem will enable students to access the courseware materials at any time from their own homes or, indeed, anywhere else.
How, then, will law teachers benefit from the use of courseware? In a number of ways. Firstly, the face-to-face tutorial session provides the most valuable teaching experience offered to students in UK law schools (Allen & Robinson, 1992). However, such small-group teaching is itself very labour intensive in terms of staff input. With this in mind, the original application for TLTP funds to the set up the Consortium targeted small group teaching as an area in which courseware development could be expected to produce significant productivity gains (BILETA, 1992). In essence, courseware has been created to bridge the gap between non- interactive lectures and private reading on the one hand, and small group teaching on the other. Generally, the materials have been designed to cover the sort of 'building block' work that is done with students in the first third of a typical tutorial session. This should then enable the tutor to spend most or all of the tutorial itself on more advanced and interesting work with the students.
Secondly, following a time when teaching resources were put under strain by a dramatic expansion of student numbers without a commensurate increase in the numbers of staff, courseware will help to alleviate the resulting tensions. In hiving off part of the intensive tutorial teaching to courseware, law teachers should be able to maintain - perhaps even improve - educational standards without substantial additional input of effort on their part. How can standards be raised by the use of courseware? Instant and convenient access to large amounts of full text primary source materials via links on the relevant pages of the workbooks will encourage students to explore and become increasingly familiar with the true raw materials of the law rather than the pre-cooked, pre-digested versions of these materials that are to be found in the ubiquitous case books.
Thirdly, the courseware provides a new method to directly monitor students. A record can be kept of whether students have accessed the materials, and how long they have spent using them. It will, therefore, be possible to ensure that students are putting sufficient effort into this aspect of their law studies. At present, the courseware does not keep a record of how well students perform the exercises in the workbooks. In some ways this is unfortunate as there would be a clear advantage to both students and teachers if it were possible to identify areas of difficulty precisely and then take appropriate remedial action. This would provide a relatively painless alternative to asking the students themselves to indicate areas of difficulty. My own experience is that such enquiries rarely produce satisfactory results. Students are either too embarrassed to admit that they do not understand something, or it may be that they simply do not know that they do not know.
How will law schools themselves benefit from the use of courseware? Again, in a number of ways. Firstly, as a result of working with the courseware, students will not only gain in their understanding of the substantive course, they will also obtain practical experience in the use of computer-based research techniques (Collins, 1994). From the schools' point of view this means two courses for the price of one!
Secondly, since the resource book contains so many key primary sources in full text form, law school library provision will be substantially enhanced without any additional charge to the library budget, at least.
Thirdly, more cost effective use of teaching staff time may preserve - or even increase - the time and energy available to put into research and writing at a time when law school research selectivity rankings appear to be becoming more and more crucial to acquisition and maintenance of a good academic reputation.
Lastly, the above mentioned benefits that both students and teaching staff will derive from the use of courseware will contribute to enhancing the quality of the study/work environment that the law school provides.
What objections can be made to using Courseware?
In this section, I shall try to predict and then examine some of the more cogent objections that may be raised to the implementation of law courseware.
To provide access the courseware, law schools will have to have access to a suitable number of computers (BILETA, 1991), (Scott & Widdison, 1994). Realistically, such computers will need to have at least the following specification: a 486 processor; 4 megabytes of RAM; colour graphics; and either a large on-board hard disk or access to a file server with large storage capacity via a local area network. At present, many law schools will not have the necessary technology either in abundance, or at all. Why then, should those law schools use up scarce financial resources in acquiring technology just to run courseware?
We have already examined a number of benefits to be obtained from the use of courseware in the previous section. These benefits might be regarded as sufficient to outweigh any finance-based objections without more. If more justification is needed, it should be remembered that use of the equipment in question is not limited solely to operating the courseware. It is all mainstream technology that can be used just as readily for efficient word-processing, electronic mailing, access to Lexis, Internet-based research, software demonstrations etc. Furthermore, the necessary equipment does not have to be state-of-the-art. The minimum realistic specification is for standard, off-the-shelf technology to be found in any high street computer supplier. Surely, any law school that aspires to providing students and staff with a credible information technology environment will need to obtain this, or better, equipment sooner or later? The arrival of law courseware may simply cause that procurement to be made sooner.
Another objection that may be raised is that the courseware does not fit in with either the educational style or teaching aspirations of a particular law school. It is true that there are a variety of different styles of legal education to be found in law schools and amongst individual law teachers. The most common of these styles are the doctrinal (or 'black letter' approach), the contextual approach and the clinical approach. Equally, it seems to be widely accepted by education theorists that there are hierarchies of cognitive skills that can be imparted to students during the course of their higher education (Bloom, 1956), (Ramsden, 1992). These hierarchies typically range from mere knowledge acquisition at the bottom of the spectrum to sophisticated interpretation and evaluation skills at the top. Different law schools may have different aspirations. Some optimistically expect to nurture the development of the full spectrum of cognitive skills in their students. Others, rather more pessimistically, set their sights lower.
Combining the three major educational styles with the various possible levels of aspiration in respect of the hierarchy of cognitive skills creates a number of possible models of academic legal education. The Jackson report described in detail five such models, going on to observe that these models "do not necessarily represent the only possible combinations." (BILETA, 1991). On the face of it, the possibility that courseware materials will be suitable for use in conjunction with all, or most, of these models of legal education would seem remote.
How can this objection be answered? Whilst it is true that there are at least three different education styles that are commonly adopted in law schools, closer examination might indicate that law schools do not typically adopt one style to the exclusion of the other two. The nature of the particular subject matter, coupled with powerful influence of the legal profession together with peer pressure all combine to make it more likely that a blend of two, or even all three styles will be adopted albeit, perhaps, with one approach in the ascendancy. Equally, there may be more consensus than is generally accepted as to the range and levels of cognitive skills that a law school seeks to nurture in its students. Are there many law schools that would violently disagree with Collins' assertion that "the academic stage is concerned to provide not only a knowledge of the law but also the ability to manipulate, apply and convey that knowledge..." (Collins, 1994)? All-in-all, may not the similarities between law schools be greater than the differences?
If the above thesis is rejected, perhaps we can fall back on the argument that, with forty academics from thirty different law schools involved in the production of courseware, there must be a substantial amount of courseware material that is acceptable to the majority of law schools. So, for example, in the contract courseware team, the effect of having five very different types of law school represented gives the resulting collection of workbooks the flavour of an anthology. Interestingly too, the contract authors tended to select workbook topics that they had a particular interest in, often because those particular topics happened to facilitate the teaching of their favourite perspectives on contract law.
Another objection that may be raised to the use of courseware concerns the quality of the materials. Needless-to-say, we must not confuse quality issues with mere differences of opinion. As is often said, no two lawyers ever agree! If one academic disputes another's view on an area of the law, it does not automatically follow that the other is mistaken or that the quality of the latter's reasoning is defective. Equally, it does not necessarily follow that it is justifiable for the first academic to suppress the views of that second academic. I would argue that it would be a unhealthy to seek to withhold parts of the courseware materials solely on these grounds.
Having said that, time pressures and other factors have resulted in some pieces of courseware being incomplete and a few, frankly, not yet up to the highest standards. How should this problem be dealt with? In the majority of cases, it would be an overreaction to disregard large areas of courseware simply because some parts are not yet complete or wholly satisfactory. Selective use would seem to be the better response. In addition, or as an alternative to selective use, a law teacher may wish to add comments to some pages by means of the annotation facility that is provided as part of the package. Something along the lines of "The author comes to an interesting conclusion but I disagree for reasons x, y and z. What do you, the student, think?" could be stimulating. A more radical step would be to use the authoring tool that accompanies the courseware to produce alternative pages, or even alternative workbooks. At present, however, it has been decided that use of the authoring tool will require the prior agreement of the Consortium in order to protect the moral rights of the authors as required by the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, ss 77-84. Furthermore, from personal experience, I would advise that authoring a workbook is not a task to be undertaken lightly!
How should Courseware be used?
If the decision is made to use of some or all of the courseware subjects, the next issue must be to consider how the materials should be used. As I have already stated, the courseware consists of both a set of workbooks and a resource book. Although these two components have been designed to work together, it is also possible to use the resource book alone as no more than an electronic 'annex' to the law school library. However, such 'stand alone' use may have significant drawbacks. Despite massive improvement in the technology, it is still uncomfortable and stressful to read large amounts of text for prolonged periods on a computer screen. Encouraging or requiring students to use the resource book in this way could even, conceivably, lead to both actions under The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 and personal injury claims. As a separate point, encouraging or requiring students to spend many hours using law school computers to do a large proportion of their reading can hardly be a cost effective use of that equipment unless the law school has either a small number of students or a large number of computers.
How then, does law courseware fit in with the range of traditional techniques - lectures, seminars, tutorials, essay writing and private reading? As an addition to them rather than as a replacement for any of them. It is intended that law teachers and law schools will be able to operate more cost effectively either by reducing time spent using traditional methods or by using the existing amount of time spent more effectively. It is certainly not anticipated that courseware will completely replace any of the other existing educational techniques.
While on the subject of the relationship between courseware and traditional educational techniques, it is useful to make another point. It is tempting to think of the courseware materials as something completely new to legal education. Such a view would be misleading, however. A better perspective is that courseware involves both doing traditional things in new ways - mixing and blending existing activities into innovative and exciting new forms. A particular workbook may, for example, combine aspects of tutorial interaction with some private reading and elements of essay writing (Collins, 1994).
For what purposes was courseware designed? As already stated, many of the authors saw their materials as replicating, or even replacing, the first third of a typical tutorial - the 'building blocks' phase. As a result, courseware tends to be too advanced to be suitable for de novo teaching (Paliwala, 1994). Equally, it would be a mistake to think of courseware as capable of replacing a whole tutorial or similar 'small group' session. Collins explains why when he writes:
"These new computer tutorials claim to be 'interactive', but of course they cannot replicate the unforeseeable patterns of conversations and discussion between teachers and students in the classroom." (Collins, 1994)
Later, he goes on to point up the computer's inability "to emulate the immediacy, excitement, and fun of a live performance in lectures or classes." The via media then, is that students could be given access to the courseware after they have attended at least some of the lectures on a particular topic and after they have done some - perhaps most - of their private reading on that topic.
Having, purported to draw the line at the use of courseware for de novo teaching on the one hand, or tutorial replacement on the other, it has to be accepted that law teachers and law schools have complete freedom (subject to copyright restrictions) to use the materials in whatever way they choose. It may well be, therefore, that enterprising and innovating teachers will come up with uses that were never envisaged by the original authors.
I shall now consider the question of how one might make use of an individual courseware subject. Clearly, the key question will be whether to integrate the materials into an existing course or not. In the case of non-integration, students would simply be told that the courseware was available and that they were welcome - even encouraged - to make use of it if they so wished.
In the case of integration, let us consider how courseware might fit into the traditional cycle of lectures, private reading and then tutorial. The typical 'learning' model might be to require students do the relevant courseware after attending all the lectures on a topic, after completing most their private reading, but shortly before attending a tutorial on that topic. Here, the courseware materials would be used as a direct replacement of the 'building block' phase of the tutorials. The question of whether this task had been adequately accomplished by the courseware could be tested by individual law teachers at the beginning of each tutorial before launching into the discussion of complicated and difficult issues.
As an alternative to this 'learning' model, law teachers might wish to adopt a 'revision' model of integration. Here, the courseware would be withheld from the students until they had completed the whole subject and were preparing for examinations. The students might then suddenly be given access to the courseware not simply to provide a valuable revision tool but also to surprise them and thereby motivate them to further and deepen their understanding of a subject.
Needless-to-say, the 'learning' model and the 'revision' model could be run in tandem. However, the surprise element would be lost and the revision element might amount to no more than reminding students that the courseware that they had made use of before was still available to assist them with their revision.
A further issue with regard to use of the courseware is that of whether students should be encouraged to work with the materials on their own or in groups of two or three. As stated above, there are benefits to students in being able to work with the materials in private, thus avoiding the embarrassment that some feel when required to perform in the classroom. On the other hand, I have often observed groups of students clustered around a screen engaging in spontaneous and fruitful debate about the correct answers to a courseware exercise. Such experiences contribute to the acquisition of valuable 'group working' skills that make students more fit for legal practice. It is also worth bearing in mind that group access to courseware may make more efficient use of scarce computing resources than individual use. In the end, of course, the approach adopted will be dictated partly by the preferences of the students themselves and partly by the educational philosophy of their law teachers.
Where next for Courseware?
To answer this question, we should consider what the future holds both for existing courseware and also for possible new courseware subjects. As for the existing collection of courseware subjects, will they be updated and improved? It is self- evident that any legal education materials must be regularly updated if they are to continue to be regarded as useful and law courseware is no exception to this rule. Given the continued existence of the Consortium, there is a commitment to update the materials regularly and periodically. It is even possible that updates will be more frequent than with many student textbooks and casebooks and without the need for students to remember to consult messy supplements and updating services in addition to the main work. Revised versions of the whole courseware can simply be sent out on CD-ROM from time to time and used to overwrite the whole of earlier releases.
Beyond updating, there is, of course, scope for improvement in the courseware. Some missing materials still have to be finished and added. A few workbooks need to be improved. Further on, it can be anticipated that other workbooks may be added by existing authors or by other legal academics who feel that an additional area should be covered, or a different point of view represented. In time, we can envisage a situation where each courseware workbook will become less the product of the original author and more a collective effort on the part of several law teachers based in a variety of different law schools.
Will there be new courseware subjects? There are already plans to complete the coverage of 'core' subjects by commissioning authors to produce workbooks both for an introduction to legal studies and for trusts. Then, if funding permits and the demand is there, we may see popular 'non-core' academic subjects such as commercial law, employment law, company law and legal theory being tackled. In principle, though, future development is not restricted to academic subjects. The development of courseware: (i) for the Legal Practice Course; (ii) for use by trainee solicitors during training contracts; and (iii) for use in connection with practitioners' continuing professional development are all possible directions that will, without doubt, be considered by the Consortium.
Conclusion
In the title of this piece, I posed the question whether the arrival of law courseware could be seen as amounting to a big bang or a damp squib. At the present time, it is much too early to say. However, we can observe that many of the weaknesses and limitations of 'first generation' courseware have been tackled and successfully overcome (Allen & Robinson, 1992), (Scott & Widdison, 1994). Both technologically and educationally, the new generation of courseware is a much more well-designed, integrated and thorough achievement. Furthermore, we should bear in mind that the interest shown by the academic community in the project, coupled with the demands now made of law schools by both students and the legal profession, together with the pressures exerted by modern educational economics all combine to create what could well prove to be a highly auspicious moment for the launch of 'Iolis'.
Bibliography
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BILETA (1991), Report of BILETA Inquiry into the Provision of Information Technology in UK Law Schools (Chairman Jackson, B).
BILETA (1992), Law Courseware Development Consortium - A Proposal under the Universities Funding Council Teaching and Learning Technology Programme.
Bloom, BS et al (1956), Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Cognitive Domain (McKay, New York).
Collins, H (1994) 'The Place of Computers in Legal Education' 3(3) Law Technology Journal 6.
Dale, J (1994) 'Law Courseware Consortium: Towards an Integrated Model of Legal CBL' 8 International Yearbook of Law Computers and Technology 167.
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