University of New South Wales - Faculty of Law - Computerisation of Law 2002

Computerisation Project - 2001

[Notices] [Contents] [Research] [Class Email] [Credits and Contacts]

Russell Allen, 10 October 2001

Due date and submission requirements

General considerations

Formal Project requirements

What your Project should aim to achieve ...

Due date and submission requirements

See the Objectives and Assessment Statement for the formal requirements for the Computer Project. The Project is worth 30% of the course marks.
The due date for you to submit your project is Monday 5 November (ie a week after all classes finish) by 4pm.
The method of submission of the Project is as that by the due date you must both:

Send me (at russell@austlii.edu.au) an email message with the header 'CAL Computer Project', followed by your name. The text of the email need only give me the URL of the 'home page' of your Computerisation Project. I will send you an email confirming receipt, and you should keep a copy of it.; AND
Hand in to the Level 10 desk a printout of all pages of your Project (with the normal assignment cover sheet), as it was at the time you sent me the email above. This is a necessary precaution in case of anything happening to the computerised copy.

General considerations

The overall objective of the Computerisation Project is for you to demonstrate to me the extent to which you have understood the main techniques of computerisation of law that have been covered during the subject, and how you can apply them to legal information in a creative fashion. If you keep that in mind you will not find this a difficult form of assessment: I am simply trying to give you a framework within which you can demonstrate what you have learnt in this part of the subject.

Formal Project requirements

The Project requirement is that you develop, on an area of law of your choice, a demonstration of the creative use of hypertext, text retrieval and rule-based inferencing systems. The Project should be in the form of a prototype or 'proof of concept', aiming to demonstrate your understanding of and ability to apply in a creative way the various techniques for computerisation of law that you have studied in this subject.

You may choose as your subject area for the Project any legal topic, including copyright law.

Your Project will include elements developed on the following platforms:

Web pages on the server at http://student.austlii.edu.au/ (or your own web pages on any other server that you use).
An application developed using the aide software available at http://aide.austlii.edu.au/

Your Project must include a 'home page' which contains links to all of the components of the Project. It can be located on any of the above platforms. You can therefore develop parts of your Project in different web locations, provided that you 'home page' links to where all the parts are contained.

Your Project should include one page entitled 'Guide to this Project' (or similar) which states in about 500 words (or less if possible):

What a user needs to know about this computer application in order to understand its purpose and how to use it effectively.
Any noteworthy features of the Project which it is important that I do not miss when assessing it.
Any problems you experienced when developing the Project, or aspects that do not work for reasons that you think are not under your control, which you wish me to take into account.

Approximately half (15%) of the marks for the Project will be allocated to the rule-based aspects, and half (15%) to the hypertext and text retrieval aspects, but since these two parts can interact, this is only a guide.

What your Project should aim to achieve ...

Here are some general guidelines on completion of the Project:

It will be easier for you to create a convincing project if you choose an area of Australian law which has a significant statutory content.
Quality of what you demonstrate, not quantity, is most important. Extensive converage of an area of law is not required by this Project, or even very helpful for its own sake. One, two or three examples of any particular technique will usually be sufficient.
Make sure that you put at least 50% of your effort into the rule-based aspects, as it is the more difficult part of the Project.
Fancy use of graphics, while not prohibited, is by and large a waste of time for this Project. Web pages should be attractive and easy to read, but this is not a course on graphic design, and extra marks will not be given for graphical elements beyond a basic mark for demonstration of ability to incorporate them in in a web page in a useful way.
The amount of time which I expect you will put into this Project, assuming you have been keeping up with the techniques taught in class to a reasonable extent, is about the same number of days work as would go into a 30% research essay. My expectations when marking the Project will be based on that assumption. I don't expect miracles, and I don't expect you to show the types of skills that you might have if you had studied computer science.

Here are some suggestions on the range of techniques for computerisation of law that you might demonstrate in the Project. It is not necessary to do all of these things for a pass level (or better) Project, but the more of them that you demonstrate in a creative way will assist you in obtaining higher grades.

The basic elements of building web pages for law should be included (see 'Building simple web pages' in the Tutorial).
Creative use of stored searches is probably the easiest way to demonstrate the 'text retrieval' aspect of the project (see 2.3. Adding stored search links in the Tutorial)
You can include other more advanced features if you wish, such as automating hypertext links to AustLII (see 2.1. Automating links to AustLII (UserMark) ).
An aide knowledge-base should contain a sufficient number or rules to demonstrate at least the following:

back-chaining of rules;
dialogues with reasonable English (insofar as aide allows this);
links from aide dialogues to web pages (This is only if the software is developed to allow this - you will be advised through the class list if this occurs.)

I am very conscious that the aide software is still in prototype form, and generous allowance will be made for this in assessment. A satisfactory application need only demonstrate that you have used the sofware intelligently to deal with the particular problems raised by a small number of sections of legislation.