Buckingham, Donna --- "Cal as Vapourware - Creating a Teaching Script" [1996] JlLawInfoSci 2; (1996) 7(1) Journal of Law, Information and Science 7

CAL AS VAPOURWARE - creating a teaching script

DONNA BUCKINGHAM^[*]

Abstract

Computer assisted learning in law (in the sense of digital lessons rather than databases or electronic casebooks) bears as many faces as there are styles of law teaching. It is an eclectic discipline (if that is not to beg the question entirely as to what members of its community are spending time and effort upon). This is the story of one such attempt to answer the question. The discussion is idiosyncratic rather than an attempt to lay out instructional theories and design conventions. It does not therefore purport to offer a paradigm. Rather it details, with the not unnatural benefit of hindsight), some of the factors which contribute to the process of teaching in a digital environment.

The anecdotal basis of the paper is the author’s work in CASI, a suite of programs on the application and interpretation of statutes. CASI (computer assisted statutory interpretation) is written for a first year law class of over 500 students who compete for 200 places in the undergraduate Bachelor of Laws programme. The suite consists of three modules, offering analysis and application of a statute (Gift Horses), modelling the judicial process of statutory interpretation (Happy Families) and integrating both those processes in an examination context (Panic Stations). The project has been undertaken by the author in collaboration with Marjan Lousberg, CBE consultant, Computing Services Centre, University of Otago, New Zealand.

This article is based on a paper delivered to the Australasian Computer Assisted Learning in Law conference, Sydney, September 1995.

Introduction

The computer assisted learning in law question was begged by the teaching of statutory interpretation skills to over 500 students as part of a first year LLB programme.^[1] Both the subject matter and the sheer size of the student catchment contributed to challenge the traditional lecture-discourse ethic. Statutory interpretation is a process and therefore does not lend itself as well to these styles of delivery as might a substantive area of law. In addition, statutory material forces some students to flex linguistic and textual skills which they may not possess to a sufficient degree. Others may be slow to replicate the language and shared legal values that form an essential part of the ritualised discourse which advocacy demands. An aggravating factor is that many students fail to disclose their difficulties, inhibited by the intense competition to survive the course and gain admission to the second year.^[2]

In abstract, the digital learning environment seemed to provide some panacea for the identified problems:

• reinforcement of the model of the legal process of statutory application and interpretation in a continuous sense as opposed to the ephemeral nature of the traditional lecture;

• structured exposure to the legal language and forms of discourse inherent in that legal process;

• privacy of learning with an infinitely patient, repetitive teacher attuned to the working pace of each student;

• flexibility of navigation of the legal domain and therefore increased ease of assimilation because of the user’s control over exploration.

While none of the CAL-in-law literature the author located could give a serial guide for how to take a digital teaching concept and move it beyond a tantalising vapourware state, it nonetheless demonstrated that a community of interest and endeavour existed. Becoming a member of that community was partly a result of curiosity: could the processes of statutory application and interpretation be given a kinetic face which would enable the student, in their own time, to learn how to replicate this skill? The project was also driven by a naive trust in the ability of technology to provide the necessary functionality to satisfy the demands of the substantive content and the teaching process used to present that material.^[3] As a result, four programs were produced and made available on the campus network for students to access at will.^[4] These are the lessons (descriptive rather than prescriptive) which the author has learned and which she will apply to any further CAL-in-law project.

Lesson 1: Is the game worth the candle? - fantasies and fears of technology

The decision to produce a digital lesson is not a facile aspect of the process. In the author’s view it should be grounded in the judgment that the computer can offer a learning environment which is otherwise logistically impossible or simply non-existent using other teaching techniques or media. In the case of CASI, two factors contributed to the decision to begin. The first was a considerable grounding in computer assisted legal retrieval and the consequent awareness of the liberating ability of a computer to navigate the legal domain.^[5] The second motivating factor was simple frustration with a traditional delivery method in a very large class within a competitive entry programme and all the teaching and learning stress that engendered.^[6]

This focus on whether the digital environment can offer features which no other teaching option possesses is directed towards efficiency of outcomes for both student and teacher-author. It is perhaps easier to build a case for a CAL-in-law project from the point of view of the student: it can offer mobility and privacy of learning and equalise the learning experience for resident and distance students. As a style of learning, it is also increasingly expected by a generation who have consumed electronic products since their infancy. From the point of view of the teacher-author different considerations apply. Digital teaching is still novel and therefore vulnerable, as any new endeavour will be, during the building of its professional credentials. The fantasy about technology and the fear of it seem often to percolate assessments of CAL-in-law worth and efficacy, ironically sometimes co-existing uneasily within the same observer.

In terms of fantasy, there is a curious tension between the “gee whiz” and the “why bother?” response. “Gee whiz” means that the use of multi-media is sometimes seen as a given in CAL-in-law programs, whether or not the content justifies graphics, video clips or sound. Lessons which use pure text as a delivery method are considered mundane, because the synthesis of computing and law teaching creates high expectations of what “the computer will do”.^[7] “Why bother?” builds the double bind: attempts to use such technology to create learning interest may be regarded as a triumph of form over substance and lay the author open to suggestions of having abandoned law teaching as a profession. This value-squeeze is natural given the novelty of the CAL-in-law enterprise and will dissipate as the concept of using a computer as a learning device becomes more securely entrenched.

Fear of technology manifests itself in the issue of how a digital lesson is treated as work product. CAL-in-law does not offer the same academic return as the publication of a traditional piece of scholarly research and writing.^[8] Somehow the use of the computer as the delivery mechanism can invoke a set of values or prejudices which steers focus away from the quality of the law content of the material. In addition, the fact that the electronic medium is not yet a standard device in the teaching arsenal will continue to contribute to the dilemma. However, it is submitted this will change over time (and time in the digital world runs faster than real time it seems). Change will be partly driven by student expectation of what constitutes a “good” teacher and that will almost certainly be one who is capable of manipulating the technology that will be an integral part of students’ working lives. Institutions which demonstrate wholesale disregard for how technology can add to teaching may find their catchments shrinking as student consumers act upon their learning preferences. As a result, the hard issue of how to address and assess the value of digital teaching material will inevitably be faced.^[9]

Lesson 2: Stick to your teaching guns

There are different fashions in digital teaching style and much hype about interactivity^[10] in discourse about CAL-in-law. Unless the enterprise is a large scale project designed for embedding within the curriculum of a number of institutions, the touchstone of writing (though not necessarily use of the end product) is essentially parochial. The object is to build a teaching environment which serves the identified demands of a student catchment and which also reflects chosen teaching goals and strategies. Those factors will dictate, and quite properly, the method to be digitally adopted: drill and practice, flexible navigation across a learning domain or a combination of these techniques. Reading about how others have produced material can provide useful ideas, but writing lessons against the chosen teaching grain is not an easy task.

It was the prospect of thinking about creating a digital teaching environment which made the author analyse the way in which lectures and small groups can work for some purposes and not others and then to imagine how the digital lesson might link to those more formal or communal learning experiences. This process resulted in a rather comforting discovery. The professional challenge inherent in the academic dissemination of concepts remained essentially intact: discussion (articulation of the theory), practice (attempting tasks set by the teacher and getting feedback) and reflection on that interaction (in order to reinforce or modify what has been learned). These transactions seemed elementally to apply whether the environment was digital or not. What was novel was that the medium was to be less ephemeral than a lecture and offered the ability to be less serial in the process of dissemination than, for example, traditional textual or lecture delivery.

Lesson 3 : The medium is not the message

Maintaining a state of digital innocence about the technology which will create and support the learning environment can be productive in the early stages of script planning and writing. This advice may sound like a recipe for digital disaster. However it is important to bear in mind the nature of CAL-in-law: using the assistance of a computer to convey and explore legal concepts and processes or substantive domains. Technology should not drive the content. If it does, seduction into the world of the technoid at the expense of the legal identity is a real risk. Mere passing familiarity with the capabilities of the developmental software is of course premised upon the ability to transplant the teaching script into electronic form, either through programming assistance or by use of an authoring system.^[11] In either case, it is submitted that the teacher-author confine his or her investigation of the developmental software to its basic principles, rather than devote large amounts of time to immersion in its precise capabilities.^[12]

Yet it is not easy to resist the urge, perhaps even the perceived need, to be intimately conversant at the very outset with the software which will carry the lesson. While publishing in the traditional sense has simply not required knowledge of the setting and printing process (in terms of how its strictures might govern content) this seems a given in the digital world. It may therefore be hard to see the rationale of maintaining a degree of technological naivety at the outset and demarcating the boundaries of such innocence, at least temporarily. ‘Can the computer produce what I need?’ is a necessary question. But the issue at the outset is how detailed the answer has to be. While sufficient technology is a sine qua non, it is safe to say that software development and hardware advances mean that the answer will almost always be “yes”.

Obviously some fundamental questions need addressing at the outset, for example:

• is the software hypertext ^[13] capable?

• will it tolerate graphics (if the teacher wishes to use diagrams, flow charts or other style of schematic presentation)?

• does it have multi media capability (if that is considered necessary)?

• if changes need to be made to form, function or content of the program, will this be a manageable task?

What is presented may be governed by the answers to such questions. For example, if the software is not hypertext-capable the teaching script may be constructed as a serial progression, rather than as a looser learning net with sequences of exploration the user can follow or bypass. But investigation of software capability beyond these parameters may not be particularly profitable. Focus should be on teaching content and the assumption made naively (but in all likelihood accurately) that the technical face of CAL-in-law will not present a difficulty. Even if it eventually does, differing solutions to the problem almost always present themselves without affecting the law content. The important thing is to create the script with an eye to the educational goals and not the demands of the digital vehicle.

Lesson 4: Stay out of the jungle

In terms of content, there is a real temptation to tackle too much substantive material in one digital lesson. This occurs whether or not the electronic platform is being used to model a legal process or to rehearse an area of substantive law. Selecting a domain whose parameters are such that a comfortable overview can be maintained maximises the chances of completing a teaching script. Direction can be lost and confidence succumb if the author cannot stay above the canopy of the forest of material he or she is creating and loses sight of the electronic wood for the denseness of the digital trees.

In terms of form, where the teacher-author seeks to take advantage of hypertext capable software, there can be a real tension. Clearly, in the non-digital world law teachers and students do not always serially progress through legal information. Manipulation of textual material (in terms of the order in which it is internalised) is a common experience and the abilities to process text while discarding and reordering concepts, referring to other material, cross referencing and comparison making are skills which law schools consciously foster in their research programmes. Hypertext “processing” is not therefore new in that sense. It is the use of that form of processing in the electronic world which provides challenges for script authors.

The desire to use the liberation of non-linear presentation must also accommodate resistance to the sometimes ungovernable pull of its flexibility. Certainly the non-digital legal desktop can be replicated, allowing the electronic learner to work simultaneously with several resources. Nevertheless, hypertext can be a very demanding environment in which to write digital lessons: the teacher-author must constantly not only ask where a user might wish to travel from one point to some other to aid learning but also must explore the implications of that choice. Flexibility of learning approach means some very careful planning is needed so that a student is never prejudiced by a navigation choice at any particular point - that no aspect is denied to them by virtue of the teaching path they have picked for themselves.

It is worth constructing a script control map to enable the writer to maintain direction while immersed in the detail of a particular segment, especially if the teaching script seeks to take advantage of hypertext capability to present the student with a number of learning paths which intersect at numerous points.

Lesson 5 : You know good design when you see it

Just as there is satisfaction in seeing the results of scholarly research in their ultimate printed form, so too does the screen provide a source of pleasure for the creator when the digital lesson is viewed. The difference between hard copy and electronic publishing however, in this context, is that the author has potentially much more input in the latter process. If the law teacher has some control over screen layout and program design, then personalising what is produced can encourage the creation of further material. There is therefore nothing objectionable about stamping digital work with personal aesthetic values, provided that some of the general conventions about design are observed^[14] when considering the “look and feel” of the script once it is converted into lesson form.

• the “look” of a lesson:

Start with a clear visual idea of the look of the project

This often focuses the mind squarely on content, so it is helpful to do this early. Besides, it can make the teacher-author feel that it really is possible to move from concept (computer assisted learning is the solution) to vapourware (this point) to source code (the completed digital lesson).

Details matter

While it is counter-productive to focus too much on how the software will present the material, it is wise to consider what contributes to presentation. For example, sans serif type is easier to read on screen than serif faces; some background patterns can be irritating; colour is a very useful navigation tool but too many hues can be distracting. If observing the conventions of design sounds like engaging in a steep learning curve in a foreign discipline, mocking up a screen or two and asking some potential users for responses can distil some useful design conventions.

Consistency is the name of the game

Whatever internal conventions the lesson has, these should remain consistent. For example, if icons are being used to represent a domain/function/feature of the program, the icon should, if possible, maintain screen position. A user can then develop a measure of predictability of use. Otherwise, the program may exhaust the user's memory, prejudicing the learning experience.

• the “feel” of the lesson

Keep it simple

It is suggested that the digital dialogue be kept simple and natural, otherwise the student may as well be using a less interactive device. But this advice is contextual - it is not suggested that difficult concepts should be stripped of their complexity simply because the medium is a computer. Nevertheless, the language and the amount of language used do have an effect on whether the user is engaged enough to keep pressing the keys or mouse to continue. When the author began writing, many of the machines on which it was envisaged the programs would run had 9 inch screens. The consequent self imposed discipline of 12 lines per screen did wonders for a lawyer’s natural tendency to loquacity. Larger screens do not necessarily change that imperative. Of course, the value of a hypertext environment is that it is easier to maintain a balance between the need for digital blank space and the danger of writing so briefly that content becomes vacuous. If lengthy explanation strings are needed, pop up fields or questions and answer sequences can be provided which allow presentation of material which has both integrity of content for the teacher and screen manageability for the user.

The user is not always right

There is a real balance to be struck between catering for user preferences and adhering to the teaching outcome for which the program is the vehicle. If users could nominate the optimum learning environment, it might well be one in which they simply laid their foreheads against the screen and by some process of neural networking the contents of the program were instantly loaded on their not inconsiderable but occasionally faulty internal hard drives.^[15] The image is a reminder that the desires of potential users are sometimes inconsistent with teaching objectives and that this should be borne in mind. However it is suggested that potential users should test the lesson once it is in beta form. At that point feedback may be very useful, particularly if it becomes clear from the reporting that the lesson objective has become skewed by the process of digital building and needs some amendment.

Map the learning domain?

An early decision should be made as to the freedom users will be permitted to range independently across the learning domain. This issue is a function of the freedom hypertext capable software offers to present ideas in a non-linear fashion and to build modules of information, allowing a user to make their own exploratory links. Sometimes a linear progression is entirely appropriate, especially if the teacher is modelling some legal process which has a serial backbone. At others flexibility of navigation is highly desirable. Always it is a question of balance: too much seriality and the user disengages; too much flexibility and the user is in danger of being lost in an uncharted digital wilderness. If the author is intent on creating a very flexible learning domain, it may be worthwhile considering mapping the domain for the user or incorporating some audit trail feature to allow the user to track their individual path. Hypertext systems allow this.

Provide help ^[16]

A help feature is a comfort device which users often appreciate for the mere fact of its presence and may be standardised or contextual. The former mostly appears as one of the first screens in the program and lays out the basic features of the lesson and the navigation tools. Contextual help (linked to a specific screen or place in a program) may look and feel better, but achieving it can create a good deal of work as it requires the script author to second-guess why the user has a navigational or functional difficulty at a particular point. It may be better to ensure that standard help is accessible from every screen. If standard help is chosen, brevity should be its essential attribute. More than two screens of information on how to use the program will exhaust the user’s memory. That can be avoided by good screen design and the use of icons which are intuitively clear (and it is surprising how many are not). In this way, many functional features become self explanatory.

Provide timely and appropriate feedback

From the author’s experience the corollary of the digital environment is a desire by users to track their learning progress in a way which they do not generally demand in the traditional learning context. It may be the natural “game effect” of using a computer. This means the opportunity to self test on aspects of the material from time to time needs to be incorporated into the teaching script.^[17] Testing can be done in a variety of ways in terms of how the student is invited to respond: clicking on yes or no, hatching the relevant choice box, ordering factors in terms of persuasiveness or predictive effect, sliding a bar across scale of possible responses, typing in an answer. It is important to ensure, whichever response device is selected, that feedback on the answer is appropriate. By that is meant that the tone of the teaching response is carefully couched and also that the student who approximates the correct response receives feedback which is as rich as that given to an inappropriate response.

In terms of tone, pulling a student up hard for an incorrect response does little to advance the learning experience and may inhibit the desire to keep moving through the lesson. “Wrong!” or “Are you sure you are a law student?” can often prompt a cynical response to further questioning in an attempt to see if the program will electronically revolt. “Think about this and then answer again” or some variation, which allows entry to a short sub-routine to help a user to correct their response based on additional information, is of more value than the bald statement of inadequacy.

As for content of the answer, it is important to reward the student who gives a correct response with more than a “You are right” or “Correct” message. After all, until natural language processing of free form responses is a reality, there is no way to tell why the student made the response they did (albeit correct). It is therefore necessary to reinforce the correct response by amplification of why it is so. Failing to do this can result in a strong student losing interest as they effectively receive no substantive feedback, denied the richness of learning routines offered to a less competent student. Alternatively, they may engineer incorrect choices in an effort to gain access to those corrective routines. Writing a confirmatory response to the correct choice may seem laborious and stilted but it will also give the author the opportunity to structure extended learning paths for those students who are at ease in the learning domain.

Escape!

The lesson should allow the student to quit at any time. This is purely a personal preference based on using a range of software over the years which left the user locked in an electronic vortex from which the only escape was a backward crash-out achieved by countless depressions of the Esc key or trust in F10 or, in desperation, a warm boot. A constant “Quit” option gives the user real control over their learning experience and probably has the reverse effect of encouraging them to stay in the environment and continue to work.

Conclusion

Many of the lessons learned may seem self evident. That may be because much of CAL-in-law technique, like non-digital teaching, is fundamentally based on very simple matters of communication and those fundamentals do not necessarily change when the environment is digital. That should perhaps signal encouragement to those law teachers who have been inhibited from attempting to produce digital lessons because of the perceived technological learning curve. While still a relatively novel teaching concept, the digital lesson is here to stay as a conduit for the transmission of legal ideas. The necessary skill for the law teacher lies not in producing the source code but in writing the teaching script. That skill is one which is already resident to a greater or lesser degree, irrespective of any prior digital experience. Adding an electronic dimension to a teaching repertoire will be an exciting extension of the educational forum.

APPENDIX I: CASI

CASI is a suite of computer based lessons in statutory interpretation and consists of three separate legal programs (GIFT HORSES, HAPPY FAMILIES and PANIC STATIONS^[18]) together with one general program (EXAM SURVIVORS’ GUIDE). CASI uses hypertext capable software^[19] to allow each student user to create a flexible teaching environment for themselves in the area of statutory application and interpretation.

GIFT HORSES replicates the process of creation, analysis and application of a statute.

The ‘Creation’ module allows a student user to explore the parliamentary process in the context of the legislative journey of the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1975, tracking both the general parliamentary procedure, and the actual events.

‘Structure’ provides a guide (in the form of a moving snail) who draws the user through the text of the provisions, offering comment on both standard statutory structure and the logical function of commonly used words ("and", "or", "notwithstanding" etc). The guide becomes less directive as the student moves deeper into the statute, and there is opportunity to self-test on aspects already met.

‘Application’ presents a fact problem and the student is given assistance in applying the provisions of the statute and predicting the legal outcome. The snail helper here attempts to convey an ordered model of the application process, expressing the prediction of the outcome in basic opinion form.

HAPPY FAMILIES provides exposure to both the theoretical and practical aspects of statutory interpretation.

The program attempts to model the interpretive process, based on a reported decision. In essence the judge is asked to rule whether a court has jurisdiction to grant a non-molestation order at the suit of a mother against her son, based on the proper meaning to be attributed to the statutory words "a man and a woman who have been living together in the same household".

The user is encouraged to explore the history of the legal provision as well as its statutory context (both factors weighed by the judge). In addition, a legal file is provided to show the factual context in which such orders are made. Lawyer guides present the submissions of mother and son and the response to each by the appellate judge. The user may move at will between the parties on an issue by issue basis or may use the judge as navigator. The full text of the case is also resident and a user may "jump" either from each party's submission on an issue or from the judicial response to the relevant part of the case. General comment on the approaches to interpretation used in determining the appeal is also included.

PANIC STATIONS models the examination process in which the student must demonstrate a synthesis of application and interpretive skills.

In ‘Examination’ a set of facts and statutory provisions are presented and the user guided through the processes of fact assimilation, statutory analysis, ascribing factual relevance, issue stating, isolating the interpretive problems, rehearsing the interpretive approaches and predicting a tentative outcome. A paradigm skeletal opinion is the culmination of this process.

The final sector of the domain (‘Grading’) is designed to make the assessment process more transparent. General comment on grading criteria is included (which the user accesses by moving a student icon along a descending bar scale). Three legal opinions of varying quality are available, based on the problem attempted in “Examination”, across which the student may scroll to pull up hypertext marking commentary (on matters of both form and content). This is intended to encourage students to evaluate their own progress or isolate areas of vulnerability.

EXAM SURVIVORS’ GUIDE provides general examination advice. The program takes the student through preparation for examinations, suggesting methods of study and stress control. Content ranges from getting started (how to avoid the procrastination trap) through the process of preparation of study notes and ends with strategies in the exam room.

Each program has distinctive structures, but all share the following design features:

• intuitive point and click navigation: a main index screen shows the basic topography of each module, upon which the user clicks to enter the learning maps;

• a glossary, accessible at any point, with some terms being "grouped" so that an explanation string is activated simply by clicking on the word itself;

• access to any part of the module from any other part at any time: a 'jump' isinitiated by returning to the main map or by clicking on the icon representing the desired destination ;

• Go Back function which returns the student explorer to the place from which he or she last ‘jumped’ ;

• a "shadow" function which enables the user to see where he or she has already travelled;

• Quit function available on every screen.

---

[*] Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Otago, New Zealand ([e-mail])

[1] The course serves as a pre-selection process for entry to the remainder of the degree. The class is culled by a process of 6 hours of examination to produce the second year intake of 200 students.

[2] Each student is offered a weekly small group class (of 12-14 students) as a supplement to the lecture programme. Nevertheless a proportion of students will fail to disclose their learning difficulties there, because of the underlying competitive environment, or will become excessively dependent on the collective skills of the class or small group in order to survive.

[3] This belief was fostered by Marjan Lousberg, the CAL consultant and had a galvanizing effect The project had begun to seem demoralising in its degree of difficulty, as the author had assumed that developing programming ability was a necessary first step in determining the content of a teaching script. Writing was eventually undertaken without detailed reference to the specific attributes of the software which would serve as the development platform.

[4] See Appendix 1 for a description of the content of each module.

[5] The author has for several years taught computer retrieval skills on a clinical basis to senior law students, using on line access to LEXIS and KIWINET. Students can respond quite differently to legal ideas as they track their development electronically, being able to order and format the information in a way which responds directly to their research need.

[6] The data gained from marking examination papers over several years made the author palpably aware that some students were having difficulty in mirroring the principles and practice of the skills of statutory application and interpretation. It seemed a waste not to attempt to recycle this evidence of a learning need by providing an alternative learning environment.

[7] This is particularly so with the rise in accessibility of the hardware which will support multi-media and the consequent growth in the home computing market (CD-ROM now being a widely accepted method of publishing). This may offer exciting new opportunities in terms of legal teaching devices, but it must not obscure the fact that law is still a textually driven discipline and likely to remain that way for some time.

[8] This situation also exists in both the United Kingdom and the United States and has been the subject of much discussion in terms of how to ensure that such electronic publications are assessed on their merits.

[9] It will form part of the wider debate about the value given to demonstrated teaching ability and the premium placed upon research publications. CAL-in-law material makes teaching techniques palpable and is perhaps a useful context in which peer review can be undertaken. This of course is provided that the reviewer is made properly aware of the teaching objective of the material and hence the teaching style adopted.

[10] The process of structuring the information so users can adapt it to their own needs can be simple (allowing a user to make yes/no choices and then giving feedback) or more complex (providing a flexible environment within which each user can pick a unique learning path). The totally interactive learning environment within which a user can interrogate the environment in a free form natural language manner and receive feedback which is uniquely responsive to that inquiry lies in the future.

[11] In the first instance the teacher-author provides a teaching script in word processed format and that is the extent of their digital contribution; in the second scenario the teacher digitally builds the script into a lesson by use of the authoring system.

[12] This approach is restricted to the development of digital lessons only. Different considerations would apply to the construction and maintenance of a database for teaching use or to electronic casebooks.

[13] Hypertext is the linking of documents with other documents - the ability to use textual information in non-linear ways as distinguished from linear media. The genesis of the concept is attributed to Vannevar Bush, who in 1945 wrote of his vision of a memex: a system of cross referencing scientific literature, including articles, graphic and photographic material. This vision prompted computer developers to eventually produce hypertext systems. Hypermedia includes non sequential journeys through graphics and other media as well as text. The flexibility of such exploration is described by the degree of interactiveness which is offered - the level of ability of the user to control the journey.

[14] There has been a great deal written about design disciplines, screen layouts and interface considerations and much can be learned from that literature. Equally, having the luxury of a designer working cooperatively on a project can contribute vastly to the look of the finished product, but it will be a resource many authors presently lack.

[15] It is of course highly likely that technology will advance to the point where the need to fundamentally rethink the way knowledge is distributed becomes acute.

[16] The “help” referred to here is navigational or functional, not substantive. The latter is better catered for by using “why” icons which a user can elect to follow to a routine which attempts to deal with their concern on a particular matter at a specific point in the learning path.

[17] One of the programs in the CASI suite, HAPPY FAMILIES, attempts to model the judicial process of interpretation based on an actual case. The teaching script was directed towards trying to portray the process of choosing meaning for ambiguous statutory words as a balancing exercise, in which the judge must take into account a number of contexts and sometimes competing considerations. It was not considered appropriate to include much self testing therefore as the modelling process was itself the lesson, not discrete routines within the program. Nevertheless that is the one aspect of the program which users would wish to see enhanced. The other programs in the CASI suite have extensive opportunity to self test inherent in their structure.

[18] The rather arcane names for each program come from a tradition of giving each class in the course a title which serves as a reference point for the content. It has proved a useful device: the more powerful the legal stories within which the process of skill building is embedded, the more likely the student is to internalise and be able to replicate that aspect being demonstrated.

[19] It was inevitable, given the campus wide commitment at the University of Otago to Apple™ technology, that the software with which to build CASI would be Macintosh™ HyperCard, a flexible software tool with a variety of functions. As a medium for publishing information in a non sequential form it offers a powerful and eminently flexible hypertext environment. HyperCard contains a number of tools which allow the author to create files of information ("stacks"). Each screen of information ("card") can contain text ("fields") and/or graphics, and chunks of information in diverse places in the “stack” can be linked with "buttons".