LESSONS FROM THE WEB

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In this monthly column, law professors and guest columnists comment on the many academic opportunities and challenges presented by Web technology.

As with all JURIST columns, you're invited to Talkback. This month...
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A Legal Research Orb Begun with Yahoo! Spinarets
Linda Tashbook
Electronic Services Librarian
University of Pittsburgh School of Law

First, you look for treaties. Then, try to find the tribunal that hears disputes arising under the treaty. After that, look at relevant foreign law that influenced the different States’ actions. See what can you find out from the news. And, since the Professors are from the United States, see what information their government has on the countries or issues involved.

These were the research tasks presented to law students at the University of Belgrade in the Spring of 2001. That law school, established in 1838 as the central provider of legal education in Yugoslavia, used its Web site to urge help from law professors around the world in 1999 while the city of Belgrade was being bombed. Now, working with the University of Pittsburgh School of Law to develop a curriculum in international commercial law, the school was hosting a course in English for Lawyers.

Ann Sinsheimer and Teresa Brostoff, legal writing professors at the University of Pittsburgh who authored English for Lawyers (Oceana Press, 2000), taught the week-long class in Belgrade while I, at work in Pittsburgh, managed the research component on-line. Having posted five sets of lessons, based on common international law issues, in Yahoo Groups, I eagerly monitored the course pages for students’ answer posts and our scheduled chats in the middle of the week. But nobody posted answers in the first few days.

I posted a poll to each group: a short simple easy to read question asking them to select from one-word multiple choice responses. Only one group did the poll. On chat day, I forwarded my phone calls, closed my door, massaged my hands, and prepared to type fast. The groups were scheduled to chat for back-to-back half hour stints. Nobody answered me in the first time slot.

Halfway through the second lonely time slot, I called Belgrade. “It’s going great!” Teresa yelled. My grandfather used to yell in long-distance calls also; that way his voice would reach me. “I’m not getting any messages,” said I, in an ordinary telephone voice. She toned down and assured me that the students had been huddling around screens and pouring through treaties and tribunal decisions during every free minute of the week. They were using each of the four computers every time they could. Those were only occasional times, because the computers were usually reserved for strictly faculty use.

Web pages loaded slowly on the four computers. My minimal international law source page, from which they were to access their primary sources, was nothing but a simple list. Yet, it took more than two minutes to load. Pages like the searchable Council of Europe Treaties page took even longer.

These students had never been in the faculty computer lab; let alone in an e-mail account. Fortuitously, I had established e-mail accounts for each of them to standardize communications within our group. Every student was identified by last name and the letters “esl” for English as a second language. Before they could even access the on-line lessons, they had to be taught the concepts of “inbox” and “compose” and “pending messages”. They had to practice using the mouse and keyboard. They had to be shown how hyperlinks work.

Ann and Teresa had them past these introductory skills by our scheduled mid-week chat day, but that was their first chance to try linking out to Web sites that would answer the research questions I’d posted. Truly a thrill! They were amazed by the information available to them. To see the full-text of international laws and the laws and newspapers of foreign countries made them feel rich.

They marched into the research with pounding fingers. Together, in their small groups each collected around a terminal, they would read a question. The student elected to type would then connect them to the resource page. They would discuss what kind of tool might answer the question and peruse the sites listed within the fitting category. Then, off they went into the World Wide Web, all leaning in close to read the next choices they’d be offered.

If we had lowered a guide thread by getting them to these lessons, they were now creating the support lines. With these new e-mail accounts, they could write to foreign experts as their professors had during the bombings. Knowing how to find foreign and international laws, they will someday negotiate transactions and settle disputes.

They couldn’t possibly chat that first week; they didn’t have questions to raise about their research yet. One group posted an answer to their first research question on the second to last day of the course, which to me was like Neil Armstrong’s broadcast from the moon. On the very last day, each group did an oral presentation in class. Generally, they had found answers to all of their research questions, but didn’t have time to compose written postings with the answers.

What good is an on-line learning group if the students don’t write back? Therein lies this “lesson from the Web”: they got the message anyway. They took the knowledge and meandered new directions with it. They learned what they needed in the class and then somehow found access to cyber cafes and other computer sources. They began to weave orbs around the simple course guide lines. That they didn’t write back to me in the scheduled chats or group posts did not mean that they hadn’t learned their lessons, only that they were busy using the lessons. There’s no doubt that they are reading international news on-line and using their Yahoo e-mail accounts now. They e-mailed us after the terrorists attacked to see if we were all okay.

© 2001 by Linda Tashbook. All rights reserved.
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 The views expressed in this column are solely those of its author, and do not reflect those of JURIST, its Advisory Board, its staff or its host institutions.
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