www.le.ac.uk

The Invisible Librarian: Teaching Legal Research Skills at the University of Leicester

HEA Teaching Research Skills to Law Students workshop 5 February 2014

Eugenia Caracciolo di Torella, Jackie Hanes, Dawn Watkins & Loveday Hodson

Once upon a time …

• Learning Legal Skills – cases and materials– how to read a case (black letter approach;

socio legal)– computer skills– how to write a legal academic essay– how to present

• Analysing Law

Positives Challenges

assessment

large numbers

different abilities

changing needs to

meet

reasonably good

feedback

very hands on course

Who is the invisible librarian?

Who is the invisible librarian?

Jackie HanesLiaison LibrarianUniversity of Leicester

@JackieHanesjh484@le.ac.uk

1 librarian & 450 UG law students

Me Law

And 7 other departments!

Me

Archaeology &

Ancient History

Law

English

History

Museum Studies

History of

Art & Film

Criminology

My teaching

• 1 hour lecture as part of the law module

• Delivered in early October (Week 2)

• Part presentation, part demonstration

• Focus on finding items on a reading list

Lecture outline

• About the library

• Find books & journals

• Starting research

• Find leg & case law

• Legal databases

• Total

• 15 minutes

• 10 minutes

• 5 minutes

• 10 minutes

• 10 minutes

• 50 minutes+ 10 minutes in and out of the lecture theatre

Support materials

• Library user guide

• Law subject pages

• Online legal research tutorials

What’s good?

• New - no library lecture two years ago!

• All students receive a library induction

• It’s the only time I meet all law students– I return to being the invisible librarian

What’s bad?

• No engagement with students

• No practical experience

• No assessment of learning

• No reflection on learning

• No feedback from librarian

My dream session …

• 2 hour practical in IT classroom

• Students learn legal research skills by doing– In class activities to assess and

feedback

• Aim higher: advanced legal research skills– Go beyond the reading list– Independent legal research skills

• Opportunity for questions and answers

The maths

• Largest IT classroom = 50 students

• 450 undergraduate law students

• 450/9 = 9 teaching sessions

• 9 x 2 hours = 18 hours teaching

Is it practical?

• Is there capacity in the student timetable?

• Are there enough IT classrooms on campus?

• Is there capacity in the librarian’s workload?– 56 hours teaching in October 2013– Can I add another 18 hours in 2014?

Invisible librarian

• Does the librarian have to teach legal research?

• Can the librarian write the teaching materials – to be delivered by academics from law school?

• Can we use existing tutorials differently?– Now: voluntary IT surgery in week 3– Future: compulsory legal research

practical?

eLearning

• Can we use elearning to teach legal research?

• Develop a legal research elearning module?– Make better use of existing online

tutorials? – Create new online lectures and

tutorials? – Use elearning for assessment and

feedbaack?

Future

• Continue to be the invisible librarian

• Work more closely with the law school to develop the curriculum

And now for something completely different…

© Pierre-Louis Hutt

The creative case study

• Read James Boyd White’s ‘Introduction to the Student’, from The Legal Imagination (University of Chicago Press, 1985)

• and

• D. Watkins, ‘The Role of Narratives in Legal Education’ (2011) 32 (2) Liverpool Law Review 113

Write a fictional narrative account of one of these cases

• Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company [1892] EWCA Civ 1

• Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100; R v

• Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273 DC

Students’ response - generally

Seminar 2: Creative case study and presentation skills

Very Good Good Statisfactory Poor Very Poor

1 2 3 4 5

35 52 51 25 1819% 29% 28% 14% 10%

Specific responses..

“very refreshing to learn about this and inspiring…thank you”

“The Creative case study was completely useless…”

A much less controversial innovation

Assessing Research Skills: Some Practical Issues

• Creating assessment for students who arrive with a diverse range of research skills.

• Creating an assessment that is (appears to be?) sufficiently rigorous.

• Agreeing as a team what the core skills are.

• The practicalities of marking in compulsory UG modules…

• Our technical knowledge when it comes to online methods of assessment.

The Problem of Abstraction…

• Assessment is abstracted from the substantive modules’ content.

• Assessment is abstracted from the librarian’s contribution.