Partner Institutions: Birkbeck College

Interim report of Iolis project for LLB (Law School) and PHE (Faculty of Continuing Education) courses, Birkbeck College 1999-2000

Project director: Sharon Hanson (Birkbeck)
Project researcher: Lisa Webley (IALS)

1. Background to the Pilot project

Birkbeck College recruits an exclusively part time predominantly evening mode undergraduate cohort and this provides a unique location for the evaluation of Iolis as a teaching and learning tool for staff and students.

The project is based in the Law School within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. The Law School was established in 1992 and has grown rapidly to a first year intake in the session 1999-2000 of 180 students. The School also has a vibrant post graduate M.Phil/PH.d programme and is launching a range of full time and part time masters in research programmes from the session 2000-2001. With the generous agreement of both the Iolis implementation project organisers and the Head of Law the project was extended to the 100 part time students on the sub-degree Certificate in Legal Method students located in the Faculty of Education.

The Certificate in Legal Method is a successful preparation for Higher Education programme primarily used as an access pathway to Law Degree courses and carries an award of 90 CATS points. It was set up in 1988 by a group of legal academics from leading academic institutions who were committed to constructing a programme that met the needs of part time mature students wishing to enter degree programmes but who lacked confidence and qualifications. The course benefits from the experience of a staff of adult educators, as well as subject specialists drawn from our team of part time legal method tutors. Students study part time for one academic year, attending one three hour session a week. The majority of these students obtain offers from university departments to read law.

The pilot therefore concentrated on two diverse cohorts of staff and students. Those involved in the undergraduate programme in the School of Law within the Faculty of Humanities and those involved in the sub degree PHE programme in the School of Arts and Cultural Studies within the Faculty of Education.

Given this diversity the ultimate homogeneity of student response was a good indicator of the general usage and user friendliness of Iolis in a range of areas. Staff response varied between the two programmes, as well as internally in relation to staff teaching on the same programme.

2. The Law School Project

2.1 Iolis usage prior to the commencement of the pilot project in January 2000

The college provision of a range of workstations for students resulted in Iolis being added to the CCS cd-rom service several years prior to the institution of the project. One of the aims of the project in the law school at Birkbeck was to raise awareness and use of Iolis among students.

2.2 Training on Iolis

Given the large numbers, all first year students are timetabled for one training session in small groups of 20-30 and are trained by a computing consultant. This takes in the region of 5 weeks. No training is provided after this time and students ask the CCS team, or the Law Librarian, or staff if they have queries using Iolis. Few students chose to purchase a personal copy of Iolis.

2.3 The nature of the pilot

Two questionnaires determined the scope of the pilot project in the Law School, the computer literacy audit aimed at the students and the staff awareness and use of Iolis questionnaire.

The computer literacy audit

Two main areas were explored:

• Familiarity with computing and level of competency, in terms of word-processing capability, use and familiarity with the Internet, and use of and familiarity with cd-rom resources.
  
• Access to computing facilities at home and at work. This indicated that there was a significant cohort who had no access outside college.

It was filled in during lecture time with an immediate return requested.

60% of the cohort replied and it was noted that 33% had no access to computers at home or work whilst a further 33% had access at both locations and in the region of 33% had access at home or work but not both. 40% were not computer literate at point of entry.

The staff awareness and use of Iolis

This was a far less successful venture with only two returns received of the twenty sent out. Discussions with individual staff indicated a wariness of the product. The staff in the law school are extremely active in research and teaching and no staff felt disposed to give time to the project. Most staff viewed it as superficial but perhaps slightly useful as a basic introduction to subjects or as a useful revision aid. Although several staff felt that positively misleading information was given on Iolis. One member of staff who returned the form stated that they had used Iolis before and were willing to explore it, but had found it superficial. Detailed reasons were at no time forthcoming. Statements concerning superficiality were repeated by many staff. A few staff commented that the students did not really need Iolis and it was far too simple for their needs.

This initial work determined that staff awareness / support from the project for the session 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 would be valuable. Also it became clear that given the constraints placed on attendance by part time students that the best way forward for the session 1999-2000 was to concentrate on evaluative measures. Students were reminded of the availability of Iolis throughout the second term during the LMLI course. These same students are to be given a questionnaire at the beginning of the second year to allow them to reflect on their use or non-use of Iolis during the course of their first year. A questionnaire would be designed to explore why they considered using it, and in many cases why they did not use it. The results of this survey will be available in November / December 2000.

2.4 Outcome of the 1999-2000 pilot

At the end of the session 1999-2000 it was clear that the most important aspects of the Iolis project at Birkbeck was to encourage serious staff endorsement of the product through the route of introducing staff to the customising functions of Iolis. This would inevitably improve awareness of and usage by the students.

At an anecdotal level, many students orally reported, when questioned that they had found accessing and then using the CCS cd-rom facility frustrating as, according to several students, "no one" in CCS or the library fully understood how Iolis operated and they could not obtain the necessary information.

Many students reported that in their opinion Iolis was not user friendly in a holistic sense, and they could not find a map that allowed them to visualise and understand the system as a whole. They could not find a facility that allowed them to scan the entire product quickly for information. Students reported difficulty in navigating the system internally, not knowing where they were. They repeatedly asked for access to a detailed manual.

They were also dissatisfied with the difficulty of printing, and the small amounts that could be saved to print. This of course will change in the session 2000-2001 when printing will have no limitations.

Whilst CCS had provision for remote access this was a hit and miss affair as far as students were concerned. many students were also discouraged by systems failure. Interestingly when the implementation officer visited, the CCS Iolis could not be accessed

What did emerge from both students and staff was that there is a need for a manual, which can be read by staff and students to help guide them not only through the basics but the complex facilities available.

A notable success story for Iolis is that a disabled year 1 student was able to secure the funding from the college to purchase a PC so that she could have access to Iolis from home. This alleviated the economic and physical stress of cabs to college and access to the library. A report will be requested from this student on usage in November 2000.

It is expected that the follow up questionnaire in the Autumn term 2000 will reveal more detail. See figure 1 for a tabulated version of the project in 1999-2000.

2.5 The project in the law school for 2000-2001

The decision was made in June 2000 in discussion with the project director at Birkbeck and the implementation officer at Warwick that monies coming with the project are to be primarily utilised to bring in a researcher for one day a week in term time to further the project in the session 2000-2001. Particularly in relation to staff liaison. The project manager would train the researcher in the first instance and a suitable candidate was identified and commenced on May 11th 2000.

The project for the session 2000-2001 will divide again into two sections; staff awareness and usage and student awareness and usage.

Staff awareness and usage project

Our staff are extremely busy engaging in demanding teaching and research programmes. There is a strongly held view that Iolis constitutes a superficial, and at times, incorrect tool for teaching and learning. If students therefore are going to successfully make the fullest use of Iolis then staff need to positively endorse it having understood its capacity.

An obvious way forward is to underline the value of the customisation of Iolis in liaison with Warwick one small section of the LMLS will be incorporated into Iolis "The street law Education Law project". As this project is designed to be part of the integration of Clinic into the compulsory curriculum the materials will be added to the legal skills/clinic workbook for Birkbeck only.

Discussions with the project manager concerning Iolis led to the request for more clinical skills input linked into the school's desire to set up web support for the Law programme generally and Clinic in particular. The possibility of web page/internet linking from Iolis was discussed and it was agreed that this would be more fully explored. Thus the multi-media facilities on the cd-rom could be used to enhance the new clinic programmes by customisation.

2.6 The research timetable for 2000-2001

September 2000

• Distribution to staff of an updated copy of Iolis with questionnaire
• Project director to work on the customising facility of Iolis particularly in relation to the Street Law project planned for November 2000

October / November 2000

• Individual staff sessions with project director or researcher regarding Iolis usage.

December 2000

• Staff usage "follow up" questionnaire at the end of Term 1

February 2001

• Advanced staff presentation of Iolis by the implementation officer from Warwick at the beginning of the Spring Term 2000-2001, showcasing the customisation of the Street Law project. Follow up questionnaire.

April 2001

• Follow up of staff by project director and project researcher.

Hopefully there will be a better reception of Iolis and its capacity by the end of the session 2000-2001 with a view to more consistent usage and encouragement from staff for students usage from September 2001.

Student awareness and usage project

• Year 1: To raise awareness and test accessibility to the system by utilising Iolis as part of the syllabus for a small section on the Legal Method Legal Systems course for the clinical Street Law programme on education law. Iolis will be customised with the materials for this part of the programme.
  
  
• Year 2: Selecting a cohort of 15 students to pursue using Iolis as self directed by providing training programmes led by the Warwick project manager, centering on Tort. It is hoped that each student will be given a personal copy of Iolis.
  
  
• Year 3 and 4: Labour Law programme: (15 students) Utilising the Discrimination / European data on Iolis as part of the set syllabus. Not providing the data in other form. It is hoped that personal cd's can be issued.

2.7 Law staff support for students

• Iolis surgeries to be set up for one hour, once a week at a set time. (S Hanson / researcher alternating)
• For the students in years 2-4: involved in the project an additional "email only" support to S Hanson and the researcher.

3. The PHE project in the Faculty of Education

3.1 Background to the Certificate in legal method and students

The Faculty of Continuing Education was delighted to be able to be involved with the Iolis project and to begin to evaluate the processes by which our students could be introduced to IT and CAL initiatives. Thus adding to their confidence and control over the process of learning. The college has very limited IT provision and normally students pursuing non-degree courses in the Faculty of Education would not be eligible for access to college computers. However the college has opened up its facilities to support this project for the duration of the two years.

There was an excellent response from the teaching team of six lecturers. One of our part time lecturers, Lisa Webley, a researcher working with Professor Avrom Scher at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, agreed to construct a modest project and use her class to run a small pilot project to identify areas for more cohesive work in the session 2000-2001.

3.2 Pre pilot preparation

All students on the programme were given a computer literacy audit / questionnaire to complete concerning their access to computing facilities outside the college in November 1999 and told that a pilot project would begin in February 2000. 66 students completed the forms out of a total of 88.

The results indicated that:

25% had access to pc's supporting a cd rom at home and at work
12% had access to pc's supporting a cd rom at home only
10% had access to pc's supporting a cd rom at work only
12% had no access

We were surprised by the high numbers of students with access, particularly in relation to the high levels of "fear" of technology also exhibited by students, as well as the ease with which some students were deterred. We were also surprised by the relatively high numbers of students with basic computing awareness.

3.3 Nature of the pilot

One class of seventeen students from the Legal Method programme was assigned as the pilot group for use of Iolis. The initial computing literacy audit/questionnaires for the pilot group can be found in Appendix 2. The class received brief instructions on the nature of Iolis and written information on how to use it at Saturday school at the beginning of term two. They were asked to consider using it during the course with a view to providing feedback on their experiences at the end of the year. They were invited to use any aspect of the programme, although the Introduction to Law and European sections were highlighted as particularly relevant to their studies. Students were told that they could obtain a free copy of Iolis from the project director.

Students were reminded to consider using Iolis throughout terms two and three of the course. They were encouraged to access it for assistance on European Law issues during their research for the extended essay on aspects of European Law. However, it was not compulsory for students to use it, only to consider whether it would be of use to them.

The seventeen students were asked to complete a questionnaire on their experiences of using or attempting to use Iolis at the end of the academic year. Thirteen responses were received, a response rate of 77%. Their views are set out below. The questionnaire sought to establish what assistance, if any, the students felt they needed from Birkbeck College in order to profit fully from access to Iolis, in addition to take-up of the Iolis service and views on its layout and usefulness. The results and attitudes need to be read bearing in mind that students only attend college for one three hour session a week to be taught by staff who are only contracted for that three hour session a week.

3.4 Student views

All of the students, except one, had considered using Iolis. One student had used Iolis successfully. The remainder had either considered using Iolis but had not done so, or had tried but had not done so successfully. One student had not considered using Iolis, as he was not aware that it was available for use by legal Methods students.

Of those students that had considered using Iolis but had not done so or had not done so successfully, a number of factors were cited as barriers to use. The students were given five options, set out in the table below, and invited to expand on these reasons or other reasons on a separate page. Responses to the reasons given in the questionnaire are set out in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Barriers to use of Iolis

Note: Base of 12 students, although some ticked more than 1 option.

3.4.1 Computer literacy issues

Many of the students lack basic knowledge in respect of computers. They are daunted by the prospect of using a computer package with which they are not familiar. There were comments from many of the students of this nature, although 2 of the students summed up the feelings of the group as follows:

"I did not use Iolis because I am not computer literate. At the moment I only know very little about computer usage, hence I was discouraged from using Iolis"

"I wanted to use Iolis but I don't know how to use it and tried to get help from one of the library staff, but she gave me an oral explanation on how to use it which I tried to put into action but still find it difficult"

This will be a major stumbling block for our students use of Iolis unless we can overcome both lack of computer skills and lack of confidence in using computers.

3.4.2. Access to Iolis within the library and time constraints

Other students, even if concerned about their lack of expertise using computer packages, were more influenced by difficulties in accessing Iolis at the library. Again, a number of students made comments on this issue, three were as follows.

"Feel I have missed out on a potential goldmine of information, although there was never time or resources during class time to broach the subject. Would be interested in obtaining a copy for home use at own expense if it is considered worth while"

"I tried to use Iolis in the library several times but the system was always down, therefore it was impossible, and by the 4th or 5th time I actually gave up. I tried to access as well from home, but I was unable to do so."

"Main reason was time constraints. I am unused to using computer research methods and did not feel I could spare the time to try and find my way around it."

There are a number of issues here. One is lack of information about how to access Iolis, another difficulty in getting to the library to use Iolis and a third difficulties with the library computer system once there.

3.4.3 Potential usefulness of Iolis as a tool for the Legal Method course

It would not be true to say that students felt that Iolis would not be of use to them. 3 of the 13 students actively asked for more information about Iolis and how to use it,. They felt it would be useful to know more about the package. 1 student used Iolis to great effect during the course and was very positive about it. There were no detractors, only students who felt unable to use it or had tried and failed due to lack of computer skills and specific training. Therefore, it certainly has potential for access students, given the right conditions.

3.4.4 View on actual usefulness

Only one of the thirteen students who responded felt that she had successfully used Iolis. This student had decided to use it because she thought that it might help her understanding of the subject better, it might be useful with research for assessments and it was an important thing to get to grips with for her future studies. she had found Iolis of some use, but would have liked to have seen exercises set within the course to assist her.

She stated that it

"Gave me an introduction to what topics we would be looking at through the months"

This is something we could try to highlight for our students in the future either orally in classroom discussion or in the course materials or homework syllabus.

Interestingly this student did not feel that she needed more help in using Iolis and therefore further training was not necessary.

3.5 Conclusions on future use of Iolis within the Legal Method programme

It is clear that if we are to move forward with Iolis either as an independent learning tool for students or as a structured tutor supported activity, training will need to be carried out by suitably qualified staff for all the students. This will need to cover basic computer literacy issues as well as use of Iolis itself, as some students are starting from a very low level of computer awareness.

Getting access to the library for our students is a perennial problem and is well known to us. Our students often have full-time work and/or family commitments and find it difficult to keep "library hours". Some do have computers at home and with effective and cheap access to Iolis from there we may get a better take up rate. On the other hand, this too would require support from someone with the technical ability to explain remote access to our students.

There is some feeling from students that they need more guidance from us as to how to make effective use of Iolis. two students asked for this type of assistance, the third indicated that she would have liked to see some exercises set within the course to carry out on Iolis. We may need to adopt a more directive approach with our students, with a couple of exercises either built into the course materials or available in a freestanding format, even if we encourage to use it as independent learners.

See figure 1 for a tabulated overview of the project in 1999-2000.

3.6 The project in FCE for 2000-2001

In the light of the attitudinal questionnaire, tutor experience and the constraints of limited one to one time, it was decided to keep to a similar format of closely monitoring one class but broadening out the expectation of usage among all classes. However only the tutors would be the support and it was decided to give the tutors a person training session on Iolis.

• All staff would again be given their own copy of Iolis
• The computing audit would take place earlier in September
• By November, 15 students who are prepared to be in the "free study" pilot identified. They will be invited to submit an assessment in this area if wished.
• The central core will be the use of materials to support the European Law essay however the monitored cohort would be looking at the ELS and Legal Skills workbooks as well.

4. Overall conclusions and the direction of work for 2000-2001

The following needs were identified and will form the basis of the overall project for the session 2000-2001

• Both students and staff highlighted the need for a clear training manual. It is clear, however, that there is a substantial group of our students who have expressed an interest in using Iolis within courses, the LLB and the PHE programmes.
• The need for customisation to encourage staff usage
• The need for CCS and library staff to become more familiar with the project.

Figure 1 The pilot project undertaken in the session 1999 2000.

Figure 2 Overall Project for the session 2000 2001

Appendix 1: IOLIS Questionnaire for Legal Method Access Students

Questionnaire on Experiences and Views on IOLIS within the Legal Method Course at Birkbeck College

Please take the time to fill in this questionnaire during the class. If you have any further comments that you would like to give to me about use of IOLIS then please write them on the questionnaire or on a separate sheet. Alternatively you can talk to me about them personally if you prefer.

Thank you for your help.

1. Have you used IOLIS?

a) Yes [ ]

b) No [ ]

2. If not why didn't you?

a) Because you have been unable to get to the library to use it [ ]

b) You didn't feel that it would be useful to you [ ]

c) You weren't sure how to use it/couldn't get any help with using it [ ]

d) You prefer not to use CD ROM's/computer packages [ ]

e) Other (Please let us know)

3. If you did not use IOLIS please give your reasons in more detail on the back of this questionnaire.
This may help us to make it easier for students like you to use IOLIS in the future. You do not need to
answer any of the other questions. Thank you for your help.

4. If you have used IOLIS (even only once), please let us know which subject(s) have you used on IOLIS.

5. Why did you decide to use IOLIS? Please tick all that apply to you and add your own reasons if it isn't in the list.

a) You thought it might help you to understanding a subject better [ ]

b) You thought it might be helpful with research for assessments [ ]

c) You thought it might be interesting [ ]

d) You thought it was an important thing to get to grips with for your future studies [ ]

e) You used it because you were told to! [ ]

f) Other reason, please tell us what it was:

6. How useful did you find IOLIS to be?

a) Of no use at all [ ]

b) Not that much use [ ]

c) Neutral [ ]

d) Of some use [ ]

e) Very useful [ ]

7. Please let us know why you answered question 6 the way you did in more detail.
(Please use the back of this questionnaire and/or a separate sheet).

8. How would you like IOLIS to have been used within the class?

a) You would like to see exercises set within the course for you to carry out on IOLIS [ ]

b) You would like suggestions on how to use IOLIS [ ]

c) You would like to be left alone to use IOLIS on your own [ ]

d) Other (please tell us)

9. Would you like more help in learning how to use IOLIS?

a) Yes [ ]

b) No [ ]

10. If yes, what sort of help would you like? Please let us know:

11. Have you any other comments about IOLIS? Please feel free to write them down on the back of the questionnaire/on a separate sheet or by talking to me about them.

Thank you very much for you help. Your comments will be fed back to Sharon Hanson and to the IOLIS team to help them with the design and use of the IOLIS system.

Lisa Webley

Content of page last updated: 13 Aug 2001

CSET 1999-2001 CH