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Archive for October, 2006

Information Literacy for the “Net Generation”

I was referred to a good article in EDUCAUSE for September called “Ensuring the Net Generation is Net Savvy.” It is not overly long, and I found it well articulated. Here is the abstract:

Net Gen students may know the Internet, but they are not necessarily “net savvy.” Exposed to huge quantities and multiple formats of information online, they are constantly challenged to sort valid from inaccurate information. Moreover, students are creating information, not just consuming it. This Educause Learning Initiative paper explores the challenges students face online in effectively finding information, using technology, and thinking critically.

I was both . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous

Venice Commission Databases

The Venice Commission, officially “The European Commission for Democracy through Law,” is:

…the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters. Established in 1990, the commission has played a leading role in the adoption of constitutions that conform to the standards of Europe’s constitutional heritage.

Initially conceived as a tool for emergency constitutional engineering, the commission has become an internationally recognised independent legal think-tank.

It contributes to the dissemination of the European constitutional heritage, based on the continent’s fundamental legal values while continuing to provide “constitutional first-aid” to individual states. The Venice Commission also plays a unique and unrivalled

. . . [more]
Posted in: Miscellaneous

Zotero

Zotero is a new plugin for Firefox 2 (it won’t work in earlier versions). It enables you, essentially, to split your screen and take extensive bibliographic notes much like those in EndNotes, RefWorks or other bibliographic software. You’re presented with three columns: the leftmost for your folders and subfolders, the central for basic information about items within those folders, and the rightmost for the items themselves. Items stored in Zotero can be labelled in a large number of ways — book, journal article… map, podcast… etc. — with new labels being added as the product is developed. (It seems they’re . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous

A Thing for Library?

Interesting post on Freedman Consulting’s blog entitled Get Control of Your Library. It refers to LibaryThing as a virtual library “which enables users to build their own web-based catalog. At a cost of 200 books for free, as many as you like for $10 (year) or $25 (life)”. Anyone ever used it? For that price, I might use it for my personal collection… especially there is a tracking feature! . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous

Vie Privée, Internet Et Fédéral

En matière de protection des renseignements personnels, nous avons critiqué la semaine dernière l’approche ontarienne, pour trois raisons: 1) elle est trop technologique; 2) elle accentue le sentiment de peur sur des faits peu motivés; 3) elle est fortement centrée sur une technologie d’une compagnie en particulier, Microsoft.

D’un autre côté, le fédéral vient de sortir un document fort emballant s’intitulant «Lignes directrices en matière d’identification et d’authentification» que j’ai découvert en allant sur le blogue de ma référence en sécurité, Bruce Schneier. Il est pour le moins laconique:

«These guidelines were released by the Canadian

. . . [more]
Posted in: Miscellaneous

Indian Legal Researchers Looking Over Their Shoulders for Outsourcing Competition

An interesting story by Rupesh Janve out of T.N. Ninan’s Business Standard today India needs to hone legal process outsourcing skills

India may lose out to low-cost countries like the Philippines, Malaysia and China that are providing legal research services to US-based organisations.

Nearly 750 professionals, for instance, are involved in legal processes outsourcing (LPO) in the Philippines as compared to 1,750 in India. Moreover, while the number is expected to grow to only 7,000 by 2010 in India, in the Philippines, the LPO market is expected to accomodate 10,000 professionals by 2010, according to analyst figures.

10,000 Filipino lawyers . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous

Educause Chides Blackboard

In January of this year, Blackboard, maker of a very popular courseware suite, obtained a patent [pdf] from the U.S. Patent Office for what is described in the abstract in part as:

A system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online, the courses including assignments, announcements, course materials, chat and whiteboard facilities and the like, all of which are available to the students over a network such as the Internet.

The genius must be in the details, because there doesn’t seem to . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous

Organizing Books

We’ve discussed cataloguing systems in the past. But of course there are different ways of organizing books.

One of Flann O’Brien’s works – perhaps The Dalkey Archive – talks about a book collector who only buys green books – that is books bound in green or with green dust-covers.

Eighteen months ago, the Adobe Bookshop in San Francisco was the site of an installation by Chris Cobb, in which he reorganized the entire shop by colour. A slide show of his effort exists on Flickr and an interview on McSweeney’s

Q: So you are going to actually be doing

. . . [more]
Posted in: Miscellaneous

Footnote to the Global 100 LegalTech Leaders List

Thanks folks, for nice comments. Aw shucks…

Now the more interesting party gameBearing in mind that I regard these sort of Legal Week, Nat LJ, Lexpert lists as inherently ludicrous. is who’s missing from the list who we would all regard as Global LeadersThe City TechMag list was top heavy with vendors, seemed entirely English speaking and was entirely USA and UK, except for my fellow PowerPoint Twin, Dan Pinnington of LawPro:

Let me start the ball rolling with my surprisingly missing sixteen:

Richard Susskind, London
Jon Bing, Oslo
Kingsley Martin, Chicago
Marc Lauritsen, Boston
Liz Broderick, Sydney
Ejan . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous

Irosoft Signe Une Entente de 7 Ans Avec Justice Canada

Le Ministère de la Justice du Canada vient de signer une entente de services de sept ans (quatre ans plus trois années d’option) avec la compagnie montréalaise Irosoft. Dans le cadre de cette entente, Irosoft a pour mandat d’assurer la maintenance et l’évolution des modules du système AGIL, un système permettant notamment d’améliorer l’accès aux lois et aux règlements du Canada pour le public et les autres ministères.

Here is a more detailed article on the topic in ITBusiness.

Merci à Marco Rivard d’Obiter2 pour la référence. . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous