SIE 525: Selected Law Course Videos
A wealth of free basic legal and policy educational material exists on the Internet. As such, much of the material assigned in this course may be freely read or viewed on the web.
Law Shelf Educational Media
https://lawshelf.com/videocourses
Background: LawShelf videos are advertised as legal courses for the training of paralegals. The courses cover the basics of various legal concepts. Each major topic below is addressed through five (or more) modules with a video covering the content of each module. The text from each video is listed immediately under the video so you may simply read the text and ignore the video if you so desire.
Each of the videos is under 20 minutes and the text is the equivalent of about five printed pages. Self-test questions are available for each video module. These are not graded and the questions from the self tests are often randomly selected for inclusion on the final exam to acquire your badge.
The has recently changed from a free and open access service to now charge $35 to take each final exam. A final exam of fifty multiple-choice questions follows at the end of each set of modules. You may take the final exam as many times as you desire but it appears that it costs you $35 for each attempt. Most students seem to pass on the first attempt. If you pass the final exam for the bulleted topic, you acquire a digital badge evidencing your mastery of the concepts.
++++++++++++++++++++
After successfully completing your first “final exam” you need to click “Accept Badge” in your account to allow it to be made public. This setting can also be adjusted by selecting the person icon in the top right-hand corner > Settings > Privacy + Security. Note: If you don’t want your badges publicly posted, when you complete this course you may adjust this setting in Credly and change your Lawshelf privacy settings or close (expunge) your account by going to My Account in Lawshelf.
Two Options: Because the site has started charging to earn a badge to prove mastery of each topic, you may choose from among two options to be graded on the materials in the videos.
Option 1 – Take a Midterm Exam. Read or view all of the LawShelf modules as assigned and review the material through the online quizzes. However, you will instead take a sit down 75 minute midterm exam. The material covered will include LawShelf topics covered by badges 1 through 11 as well as related concepts covered in the lectures. The midterm exam will likely contain a few multiple choice items but would also likely include questions requiring short-answer and paragraph explanatory responses. I envision the midterm being offered in an evening just prior to Spring Break on Thursday March 10 or Friday March 11. It could be taken on campus or at home similar to the instructions given for the final exam.
Option 2 – Acquire Ten Badges. Read all of the LawShelf modules as assigned, review the material through the online quizzes, pay the $35 fee to take each “final exam”, and acquire the badge for each unit. Completion of only 10 badges out of the 15 badges indicated on the syllabus is required. Complete the chosen badges by the due dates indicated on the syllabus. This is the recommended option. (Note: The badge due on Jan 23 may be delayed until Jan 30 with no loss of late points due to changes and challenges with the LawShelf video site.)
Option 2 Processes
Setting Up Your Badge Account: You will need to set up an account on LawShelf for yourself. You will also need a Credly account in order to readily view and report the badge credentials that you earn by taking the final exam for each group of five modules. You will not be requesting that those badges be transferred for credit to the University of Maine nor any other university. Consult the section below titled Explanation for Posting Badges to Brightspace.
Badge Assignments: Rather than take a mid-term exam in this course, you may acquire 10 badges from the list of 15 badge opportunities listed below. The final exam to document your mastery and create your badge verification costs $35 for each badge if you pass on the first try. The badge for each topic needs to be delivered to Brightspace by the deadline noted for each. If you deliver on time, you receive 100% as your grade for that badge. If late, the maximum grade received is 90%. You can obviously miss some badged and their deadline with no harm to your grade. If you do more than 10 badges, the 10 highest scores are used for your badge grade. Although you should try to finish badges before material is covered in class, badges are typically due late on Sundays (i.e. 11:59 pm) either soon before or soon after when some of the content may be addressed in class. To be safe, try to keep a couple badges ahead of impending deadlines if you can.
Delivery of Badges to Brightspace: How to delver documentation of successful badge acquisition is NOT intuitive. Please read the explanation below that follows the topic listing.
Lawshelf Legal Topic Badge Options for SIE 525
Badge 1
• Intentional and Negligence Torts
Covered in Class: Jan 25
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night Jan 23 (i.e. before midnight) [Note: May be posted up to Jan 30 with no late penalty.]
– If interested in more detailed discussions of major categories of torts, consult Torts and Personal Injury
Badge 2
• Product Liability
Covered in Class: Jan 27
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night Jan 30 (i.e. before midnight)
Badge 3
• Vicarious Liability (Liability for the Torts of Others)
Covered in Class: Jan 27
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night Jan 30 (i.e. before midnight)
Badge 4
• Acquiring Copyright Protection
Covered in Class: Feb 1
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night Feb 6
Badge 5
• Copyright Enforcement and Defenses
Covered in Class: Feb 3
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night Feb 13
Badge 6
• Trademarks
Covered in Class: Feb 15
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night Feb 20
Badge 7
• Basics of Civil Litigation
Covered in Class: Feb 24
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night Feb 27
Badge 8
• Evidence
Covered in Class: Feb 24
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night Feb 27
Badge 9
• Cyber Law
Covered in Class: March 1
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night March 6
Badge 10
• Basics of Contracts Law
Covered in Class: March 8
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night March 13
Badge 11
• E-Commerce Regulation
Covered in Class: March 8
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night March 20
Badge 12
• Freedom of Speech
Covered in Class: March 22
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night March 27
Badge 13
• Mass Torts
Covered in Class: not listed on syllabus
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night April 3
Badge 14
• E-Discovery
Covered in Class: not listed on syllabus
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night April 10
Badge 15
• Another Choice
You may choose to earn one of your badges under another topical area as long as the topic is germane to both information systems law and your domain of interest. (Example: Health Records and Privacy may be appropriate if you are interested in the health field.)
Badge Delivery Due Date: Sun night April 17
Option 2 – Explanation for Posting Badges to Brightspace:
The following is my best shot at explaining the badge evidence posting process with the help of a couple students who have already posted successfully. After posting once, the process should be much easier. If you have suggestions for improving this explanation, please let me know.
Acquire Your Badge
- You may not accomplish a “final exam” on a legal topic through LawShelf until you register an account at lawshelf.com. Therefore click the Register button. For future visits to the site, simply use the Log In button.
- Take a final exam after completing each set of five modules. The exam typically consists of fifty randomly selected questions. Many questions you likely already saw in the practice quizzes for each module. In attempting to take a final exam you will be required to go through a registration process with an exam proctoring system involving video and audio fingerprinting. NOTE: For your very first final exam for a badge do NOT wait until the last day to take it. When attempting a first exam you will be required to register for a voice print in order to take it. You then should receive an e-mail within one business day letting you know that your registration was approved and you can proceed.
- After successfully completing your first “final exam” you need to click “Accept Badge” in your account to allow it to be made public. This setting can also be adjusted by selecting the person icon in the top right-hand corner > Settings > Privacy + Security. Note: If you don’t want your badges publicly posted, when you complete this course you may adjust this setting in Credly and change your Lawshelf privacy settings or close (expunge) your account by going to My Account in Lawshelf.
Access and Download your Badge
A different company handles the public posting of your badges. By verifying or accepting a badge, you should now show up at credly.com. After you have passed the final exam, created a Credly account, accepted the badge, and made it public, do the following:
- Once logged into the LawShelf site, select My Courses.
- A list of completed courses will show on the main screen, there is an option to View Digital Badge. Select that option.
- A new browser tab or window will take you to Credly. You must select Sign IN and sign in to your Credly account here. (In the future you should be able to just go directly to your account in Credly whenever you want an updated transcript)
- Once logged into Credly, select the person icon in the top right-hand corner. Choose Send Transcript from the drop-down list which presents.
- Complete the form which opens and select Continue. Institution and recipient fields are required.
- A new page will give you the option to VIew Transcript or Send. Select View Transcript.
- Depending on your browser, you will have the option to Open or Save As the downloaded file.
- Open the file to confirm the completeness, save the file to your computer.
- Deliver the pdf file to Brightspace under the appropriate assignment making certain the attached pdf includes the appropriate badge on the transcript . That is, in Brightspace, select Assessments > Assignments > click the appropriate Badge assignment > follow the instructions for attaching the pdf file.
- Repeat this process each time you acquire a new badge. Your transcript will eventually grow to include all of your badges. As long as the new transcript delivered to BrightSpace each time includes the new badge for the particular assignment, you have met the assignment delivery requirement.