The 2006 CALI Conference for Law School Computing

Audience: All
Technical Level: Low

Presentation Powerpoint: Faculty_Rewards.ppt
Book References: references.pdf

Law School’s employ faculty for the primary roles of: teaching, researching, and producing publications. However in addition to these responsibilities it is clear faculty are expected to participate in committees, advise student, develop curriculum, organize scholastic activities, attend events, adopt technology, act as a liaison, continually self educate in their respective fields, attend and present at workshops/conferences, and play an active role in the community.

This round-table discussion is targeted to focus on our institutions organizational structure, culture, departmental priorities, and reward systems that shape the roles of each faculty member (at least prior to tenure). It is clear that many challenges emerge when a dis-connect occurs between these systems and the drive to engage faculty in technology adoption. Put another way, faculty roles are changing and the review, promotion, and tenure system is not.

I am hoping we can move close to answering the following questions:

*What are the current organizational structures, cultures, department priorities, and reward systems at your institution?

*How can they be changed to incorporate a technology adoption component directly in each system and promote/motivate faculty participation? (i.e. time, funding, staff, tenure, etc?)

*How can we increase faculty participation in professional development activities to better prepare them for technology pedagogy?

*How can engaged faculty, students, and support staff work together as a change agent to promote organizational change?

*How do we evaluate teaching and learning in adoption initiatives and who is accountable?

MP3: BaiaLR2Th230.mp3

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Patricia L Baia
Instructional Technologist
Albany Law School

Links to ERIC database (http://eric.ed.gov/)

• Community of Learners (.pdf)
• System Approach (.pdf)
• Community College Study (.pdf)
• Professional Development – Medical School Model (.pdf)
• Faculty Teaching Faculty Model (.pdf)
• Dual Mode Academics (.pdf)

Audience: All
Technical Level: Low

Laptops are everywhere in law school, but until now there has been no software that specifically does what law students do. Aspen Studyware is workflow software designed by a law student for every part of law school — class prep, exam prep, Socratic debate, research and writing, and more. Aspen Studyware gives students a reason to brief cases and take good notes by making law school studying more productive. Tested in the classroom, one professor has already declared that students who used the software did better in the course than those who did not. It will be appearing at your law school this academic year. Come and see a demonstration of what the students in your class will be doing with Aspen Studyware. Learn more at http://lawschool.aspenpublishers.com.

Richard Mixter
Senior Acquisitions Editor
Aspen Publishers

Audience: CSI Fans
Technical Level: Low

This presentation will showcase the work of the National Clearinghouse for Science Technology and the Law at Stetson University College of Law (NCSTL).

In 1999, the National Institute of Justice reviewed the status and needs of those who work with forensic sciences, concluding that the end-users of forensic sciences – lawyers & judges – needed more education in those sciences, and that forensic scientists needed more training in law, specifically how to be effective expert witnesses. NCSTL was built to bridge the gap between these disciplines, providing a place for “one stop shopping” for law, science and technology information. Perfect timing given the growing interest in CSI!

NCSTL provides a free forensics research database containing references to resources intersecting science, technology, crime scene investigation and the law. The database is cultivated by law students and researchers at Stetson Law School. Forensics researchers, such as lawyers, judges, scientists, educators and members of the general public, can investigate topics ranging from arson investigation to voice analysis. The database offers bibliographic information for legal and scientific resources, as well as references to popular literature, organizations and educational opportunities.

Developing distance education programs is also a large part of NCSTL’s program objectives. Focus is on the importance of effective planning and development of distance learning programs and includes:

1. identifying needs of the target audience,
2. their familiarity with technology,
3. accessibility of various technologies such as videoconferencing or web-based classes via a CMS,
4. the need for testing, progress tracking, and continuing education,
5. topics considered necessary and important,
6. costs of development,
7. quality control,
8. accreditation,
9. marketing the program, and
10. hiring technology personnel.

Learning objectives:

Attendees will:

1. Gain information about NCSTL’s database and distance education programs
2. Know how content for the NCSTL database is developed
3. Comprehend how to use the NCSTL database to do research
4. Recognize that knowing your target audience is crucial in making key Educational decisions regarding appropriate media and instructional design
5. Know when to use mediated learning versus self-directed learning and asynchronous learning versus synchronous learning

Diana Botluk
Director of Research
Stetson University College of Law

Susan G. Zucker
Director of Technology & Distance Education
Stetson University College of Law

Audience: Anyone
Technical Level: Medium

Barbara Ginsburg and Glen McBeth from Washburn University School of Law will give a hands-on demonstration of video techniques and common video editing software. These are commonly used for creating instructional videos.

• Powerpoint Slides
• Media Files

MP3: GinzburgLR3Th100.mp3

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Barbara Ginzburg
Instructional Technology Librarian
Washburn University School of Law

Glen McBeth
Reference Librarian/Instructional Technologist
Washburn University School of Law

Audience: Anyone
Technical Level: Low

Each year, the Legal Writing and Research faculty at Wayne State University Law School, a staff of five, introduce 200-250 students to the process of legal research and writing. The law librarians at the Arthur Neef Law Library work closely with the Legal Writing and Research (LWR) faculty to plan and present supplementary workshops that expose students to the materials they are expected to use to complete research assignments made in the first semester as well as an Appellate Brief in the second semester. Unfortunately, these workshops do not allow students the hands-on introduction or the one-on-one attention from librarians that students desire and librarians would prefer to make available.

To provide more active learning in the use of library resources at WSU, the Director of the Legal Writing and Research Program, two law librarians and the library?s Applications? Specialist sought and were awarded an Innovative Instructional Technology Grant by the Office of the Provost in Fall, 2005 to create Legal Writing and Research Library Workshop Modules (LWR-LW Modules). The project allows law librarians to provide bibliographic instruction in a manner that responds to student requests for individualized assistance using technology already available on campus. The Applications Specialist, an instructional designer, worked with the law librarians to assess user needs and to develop and deliver materials online made up of screen and document snapshots with voice over lectures to assist students in completing LWR assignments. Use of the Modules is also extended to the hundreds of non-law students on campus who take courses where legal research is necessary including Business, Education and Social Work policy courses as well as reference courses in the Library and Information Science Program.

Interactive Modules were created under the grant on the following topics:

Print Secondary Resources Computerized Indexes Federal Statutes Federal Cases Updating resources: Shepard?s and Key Cite State Statutes and Cases Free Online Legal Research

In this session, Librarian, Lauren Collins, who wrote the grant proposal and spearheaded the resulting program, will discuss the grant process, chronicle the development of the Modules, and provide a demonstration of the finished product.

MP3: CollinsLR1Th100.mp3

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Lauren Michelle Collins
Public Service Librarian/Instruction
Wayne State University Law School

Audience: All
Technical Level: Low with some Medium

Our goal is to examine what is possible with classroom technology. What would an ideal classroom look like today? or 5 years from today? Classroom technology can be done on the cheap, but what would an ideal classroom look like (if cost were not a concern). We would use the University of Texas as an example of a cheap implementation, but one that still incorporates many interesting technologies, such as tablet pc’s, ceiling-mounted document cameras, and central control systems.

MP3: AndradeLR2Th100.mp3

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Ray Andrade
Media & Technology Specialist
Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center

Michael Harvey
Educational Technology Coordinator
University of Texas School of Law

June Liebert
CIO and Lecturer
University of Texas School of Law

Audience: All
Technical Level: Low

Over the past 7 years, the Law School Admission Council has become the preeminent player in providing technology-based services to the law school admission offices. In its special position as a membership organization made up of the 196 U.S. ABA-approved law schools and 15 Canadian law schools, LSAC is not ?just another vendor? but is an organization integral to establishment of these services. They are continually being asked to provide more services for law school applicants, law school admission offices and other related contingencies.

During the fall of 2005, technology professionals from 135 law schools participated in four regional technology conferences which were hosted by LSAC. The topics of these conferences covered a general overview of LSAC but focused on their next generation admission services named ACES2. An update on ACES2 will be presented later on in this conference. This session will focus on what LSAC has done over the recent past, its plans for the next couple of years, and its strategic vision of the types of services that may be offered in the future.

Bruce Bachman, Vice President of the Information Services Division and Chief Information Officer for LSAC will present the past, present and future. With an IT organization numbering over 100 people, Bruce will also be happy to share any insights and ideas that he has as a CIO in a company dedicated to law school services. So, bring your questions!

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Bruce Bachman
VP, Information Services Division
LSAC

Audience: Faculty, Instructional Technologies, Leadership, IT Staff
Technical Level: Middling

The increasing volume of digital information that researchers’ collect and create make the task of finding, capturing, organizing and eventually collaborating with digital data more difficult. Multiple silos of data (e-mail, files on hard dives, web documents and databases for example) exasperate the problem of finding digital information in a timely manner.

Fortunately the tools for organizing and finding digital information have finally started to catch up with the large pools of data that we are collecting. Vannevar Bush was ahead of his time back in 1945 when he envisioned a device that would allow and individual to store "all his books, recoreds, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory." (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/194507/bush) Today we are very close to Bush’s 60 year old vision. There is no one size fits all formula for how a researcher will optimally manage their data, but rather we will look at a number of tools researchers at our University have used separatly and in combination to manage data organization, searching and citation, as well as facilitate knowledge sharing. Some of the software tools we will look at include:

– Desktop search tools (Google Desktop & Windows Desktop Search)
– e-Document Management (Onfolio, Firefox Scholar, OneNote, Evernote)
– Social Software (del.icio.us, Flickr)
– e-Conferencing (Skype, Msn Messenger)
– Collaborative Research (SharePoint, Alfresco, Silk, Plone, Groove virtual office)
– Real Time Document Editing (MSN Messenger Application Sharing, VNC, Webex)

The two major benefits that come from effective knowledge management and knowledge sharing are an increase in the speed and quality of the research being performed. Less time is spent looking for information that has already been identified, so that more time can be spend in analyzing and associating desperate pieces of information. Electronic tools can make possible collaboration between colleagues that in the past would have been difficult, if not impossible to do. A group of nine Law Professors at two Universities have used our some of our collaboration tools to successfully share research and collaborate in a way that would have been very difficult five years ago. Not all faculty and staff find every tool useful, but for some they present solutions to long standing problems.

Whether they realize it or not, most researchers are struggling with the mountains of digital data that they have accumulated during their careers. If shown the tools available to them to find, capture and collaborate, our experience is that many, if not most, will start to use at least some of these knowledge management tools to move effectively manage and share their data.

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Rich McCue
Systems Administrator
University of Victoria Law School

Audience: All
Technical Level: Pretty Geeky

Since our OPACs are essentially glorified web browsers, expensive, overpowered Windows machines could be replaced with a more secure, much less maintenance-intensive, and cost-effective (read: free) solution, making use of already available hardware. I will demonstrate how I built Web-browsing kiosks for our library OPAC machines using Firefox and GNU/Linux. The kiosk project is Live-CD based, and I will demo the kiosk as part of the presentation.

The presentation will cover the following issues:

• Remastering the CD
• Installing packages
• Securing the system
• Tweaking and Locking down Firefox
• Windows machines not completely gone! (just mostly)
• Current status of the project

slides: http://calicon06.classcaster.org/blog/resource/firefox_kiosk_slides/cali.tar.gz

MP3: HurleyLR3Th1030.mp3

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Michael Hurley
Webmaster/System Administrator
University of Connecticut Law School

Audience: All
Technical Level: None requried

Nova’s Dean Harbaugh has been an avid proponent of technology in legal education for many years. In this session, he will discuss frankly why technology can be an enhancement to law school operations, education and administration. He will also offer advice and insight into how IT looks from the Dean’s Office that will be valuable to you at your home institutions.

MP3: HarbaughLR1Th1030.mp3

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Joseph D. Harbaugh
Dean and Professor of Law
Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center