Guidelines for good practice in sharing resources in law

UKCLE’s Good practice in sharing resources in law project had as one objective the publication of guidelines for good practice. However, early research indicated that resource sharing throughout higher education is not as widespread as was previously envisaged and has not reached the level of maturity for the development of guidelines to be feasible. Consequently, the project identified five key themes, with some pointers to effective practice, whch are outlined below.

Key themes

• The reusability paradox
• If we build it will they come?
• What type of service?
• Technical and copyright issues
• The legal education information environment

The reusability paradox

1. Resources need context to be effective, but reusability is best without context.
2. Reusing aims to prevent ‘reinventing the wheel’, but:
   
   • institutions may require materials to be written to a specified format or style
   • resources you create yourself reflect your own personality and teaching style – and can be fun to create
   • students want materials they ‘own’, rather than something produced at a (possibly rival) institution
3. Reusing can be inspiring:
• broadens the syllabus by adapting other peoples’ ideas
• it’s a force for the ‘common good’ – nice to see others using your work and to help colleagues in return for their help

If we build it will they come?

1. Building and sustaining a user community is not trivial:
   
   • the nature of a ‘community of practice’ in this area, including the crucial factors to maintain it, is a topic of current research
   • communities should emerge rather than be created, however there is still a facilitating role
   • resource requirements in terms of information management and technical development must be factored in
2. The community ‘home’ must have a baseline of content at the start:
   
   • some features may be identified as forming a critical mass
   • these should be maintained by the community itself
   • start with enthusiasts/early adopters, or where is there most need for materials

What type of service?

1. Repository vs metadata repository – or a hybrid?
   
   • be realistic not ambitious, and clear about the service/s on offer
   • encourage authors to take responsibility for depositing and describing their resources – they are the community
2. Quantity vs quality:
   
   • identifying best practice – who judges and how?
   • develop a peer rating and reviewing system
   • create a template including guidelines to best practice
3. What do we want to reuse:
   
   • content, tools, processes

Technical and copyright issues

1. Technical churn is a fact of life:
   
   • allow for slippage in the development of tools
   • keep the platform simple
   • ‘future proof’ as much as possible – look at interoperability
2. Metadata options:
   
   • use current standards
   • create and maintain high quality metadata records where possible
   • explore complementary and more informal modes of resource description by authors
3. Copyright and IPR:
   
   • intellectual property rights (IPR) may not be of as high a significance as anticipated – and not required for a metadata repository
   • a more sophisticated process required for customisable resources – see the Jorum Contributor licence
   • the increased competitive dynamic in higher education means that resources are seen as part of the service offered to students, militating against the development of a sharing culture
   • lack of clarity and knowledge re the copyright of teaching resources

The legal education information environment

1. A subject-based repository?
   
   • most likely to succeed (highest evidence of sharing in the area of sharing with colleagues)?
   • low level of participation in institutional repositories
   • advocacy work required to engage the legal education community in resource sharing issues
2. What is law school culture:
   • what is important to the academic lawyer – team versus individual concerns
   • reluctance of the legal education community to engage in debate outside face to face events?
3. Nature of the law information landscape:
   
   • large and complex scope of current services, reliance on proprietary datasets
   • what are the information and communication needs of legal educators?
   • how does current information seeking behaviour impact on the sharing of resources?

Last Modified: 6 July 2010