Education Commons^™

The Unreasonable Effectiveness Of Large Language Models In Zero-Shot Semantic Annotation Of Legal Texts, Jaromir Savelka, Kevin D. Ashley

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The emergence of ChatGPT has sensitized the general public, including the legal profession, to large language models' (LLMs) potential uses (e.g., document drafting, question answering, and summarization). Although recent studies have shown how well the technology performs in diverse semantic annotation tasks focused on legal texts, an influx of newer, more capable (GPT-4) or cost-effective (GPT-3.5-turbo) models requires another analysis. This paper addresses recent developments in the ability of LLMs to semantically annotate legal texts in zero-shot learning settings. Given the transition to mature generative AI systems, we examine the performance of GPT-4 and GPT-3.5-turbo(-16k), comparing it to the previous …

The World Is Our Classroom: Developing A Model For International Virtual Internships - The Global Innovations Project, Paul Doyle, Brian Keegan, Damian Gordon, Anna Becevel, Paul J. Gibson, Zhiying Jiang Phd, Dympna O'Sullivan

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In the aftermath of COVID-19, remote working has become the norm, and graduates now need an even wider range of skills, which traditional classrooms and internships do not always provide. Working in multiple time zones, within global multi-cultural teams, and only ever meeting colleagues through online technology are just some of the challenges, which require a new type of global graduate. Transversal skills including leadership, collaboration, innovation, digital, green, organization and communication skills are critical. The disruption from COVID-19 also presents unprecedented opportunities to develop more inclusive approaches to internships and international experiences, to level the playing field for students …

Evaluating A Peer Assisted Learning Programme For Mature Access Foundation Students Undertaking Computer Programming At An Irish University, Nevan Bermingham, Frances Boylan, Barry J. Ryan

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Access Foundation Programmes are a widening-participation initiative designed to encourage engagement in higher education among under-represented groups. This includes socioeconomic and educational disadvantage. Mature students in particular enrolled on these programmes experience greater difficulties making the transition to tertiary education, especially when they opt to study disciplines traditionally considered difficult. Computer programming is perceived as a traditionally difficult subject with lower pass rates and progression rates typically than other subjects.

This paper describes the first of a three-cycle action research study examining the perceived effects of a structured Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) Programme for mature students enrolled on a computer …

The 4c’S Of Pal – An Evidence-Based Model For Implementing Peer Assisted Learning For Mature Students, Nevan Bermingham, Frances Boylan, Barry J. Ryan

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Peer Assisted Leaning (PAL) programmes have been shown to enhance learner confidence and have an overall positive effect on learner comprehension, particularly in subjects traditionally perceived as difficult. This research describes the findings of a three-cycle Action Research study into the perceived benefits of implementing such a programme for mature students enrolled on a computer science programming module on an Access Foundation Programme in an Irish University. The findings from this study suggest that peer learning programmes offer students a valued support structure that aids transition and acculturation into tertiary education whilst simultaneously improving their subject-matter comprehension and confidence. An …

All Things Merge Into One, And A River Runs Through It: Exploring The Dimensions Of Blended Learning By Developing A Case Study Template For Blended Activities, Damian Gordon, Paul Doyle, Anna Becevel, Tina Baloh

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The BLITT (Blended Learning International Train the Trainer) Project is focused on developing a training programme to equip teachers to become proficient in championing the use of Blended Learning in the classroom. The training programme will be developed in two phases, in the first phase involves the development of a series of case studies relevant to Blended Learning, followed by a second phase where the BLITT training programme will be designed and developed, using input from these cases. In developing the blended learning case studies, two key documents were identified as being essential, first, a case study tracking template to …

A Novel Parabolic Model Of Instructional Efficiency Grounded On Ideal Mental Workload And Performance, Luca Longo, Murali Rajendran

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Instructional efficiency within education is a measurable concept and models have been proposed to assess it. The main assumption behind these models is that efficiency is the capacity to achieve established goals at the minimal expense of resources. This article challenges this assumption by contributing to the body of Knowledge with a novel model that is grounded on ideal mental workload and performance, namely the parabolic model of instructional efficiency. A comparative empirical investigation has been constructed to demonstrate the potential of this model for instructional design evaluation. Evidence demonstrated that this model achieved a good concurrent validity with the …

Technology And The (Re)Construction Of Law, Christian Sundquist

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Innovative advancements in technology and artificial intelligence have created a unique opportunity to re-envision both legal education and the practice of law. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the technological disruption of both legal education and practice, as remote work, “Zoom” client meetings, virtual teaching, and online dispute resolution have become increasingly normalized. This essay explores how technological innovations in the coronavirus era are facilitating radical changes to our traditional adversarial system, the practice of law, and the very meaning of “legal knowledge.” It concludes with suggestions on how to reform legal education to better prepare our students for the emerging …

You Can't Lose A Game If You Don't Play The Game: Exploring The Ethics Of Gamification In Education, Dympna O'Sullivan, Ioannis Stavrakakis, Damian Gordon, Andrea Curley, Brendan Tierney, Emma Murphy, Michael Collins, Anna Becevel

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Gamification has been hailed as a meaningful solution to the perennial challenge of sustaining student attention in class. It uses facets of gameplay in an educational context, including things such as points, leaderboards and badges. These are clearly efforts to make the student experience more entertaining and engaging, but nonetheless, they are also clearly digital nudges and attempts to change the students’ behaviours and attitudes to a specific set of concepts, and in which case they must, and should, be subject to the same ethical scrutiny as any other form of persuasion technique, as they may be unintentionally eroding the …

Automatically Extracting Meaning From Legal Texts: Opportunities And Challenges, Kevin D. Ashley

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This paper examines impressive new applications of legal text analytics in automated contract review, litigation support, conceptual legal information retrieval, and legal question answering against the backdrop of some pressing technological constraints. First, artificial intelligence (Al) programs cannot read legal texts like lawyers can. Using statistical methods, Al can only extract some semantic information from legal texts. For example, it can use the extracted meanings to improve retrieval and ranking, but it cannot yet extract legal rules in logical form from statutory texts. Second, machine learning (ML) may yield answers, but it cannot explain its answers to legal questions or …

Three Decades Of Universal Design - Defining Moments, Margaret Kinsella

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This paper contributes to the growing research on incorporating Universal Design in the Higher Education landscape by presenting a Practitioner's Perspective on Universal Design as delivered in the Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown (ITB) in the first year of a creative digital media degree as part of the first year experience. This first year experience is a transition time for many students and has many complexities; while being an exciting and fulfilling time, the transition can also be challenging and isolating. Through Universal Design, the aim is to enable students to 'Get connected' and 'Stay connected'. Universal Design for Learning is …

Programming: Predicting Student Success Early In Cs1. A Re-Validation And Replication Study, Keith Quille, Susan Bergin

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This paper describes a large, multi-institutional revalidation study conducted in the academic year 2015-16. Six hundred and ninetytwo students participated in this study, from 11 institutions (ten institutions in Ireland and one in Denmark). The primary goal was to validate and further develop an existing computational prediction model called Predict Student Success (PreSS). In doing so, this study addressed a call from the 2015 ITiCSE working group (the second "Grand Challenge"), to "systematically analyse and verify previous studies using data from multiple contexts to tease out tacit factors that contribute to previously observed outcomes". PreSS was developed and validated in …

A Conceptual Framework For A Software Development Process Based On Computational Thinking, Catherine Higgins, Ciaran O'Leary, Orla Hanratty, Fredrick Mtenzi

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A software development process is a mechanism for problem solving to help software developers plan, design and structure the development of software to solve a problem. Without a process to guide the structured evolution of a solution, it is extremely likely that at least some aspect of the resulting software will be omitted or incorrectly implemented. Even though the importance of utilising a software process for solving problems is accepted in the business and academic communities, it is a topic that is addressed very lightly (if at all) in most freshman undergraduate computing courses with most courses focussing on programming …

Data Analytics In Performance Of Kick-Out Distribution And Effectiveness In Senior Championship Football In Ireland, Roisin Donnelly, Darragh Daly

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n recent years, data analytics has been a growing phenomenon in many fields, including sport, and there has been an increased focus on how technology will impact the work of coaching andperformance professionals. This paper provides a reflection of the use of data analytics within the Gaelic Athletic Association’s (GAA) football coaching practice in Ireland, and evaluates for coaches how to enhance kick- out distribution and effectiveness. Specifically, the study aimed to dissect and analyse kick- out strategies to assess from a coaching perspective, the impact on distribution andeffectiveness. The research is a …

Teaching Android Security Through Examples: A Publicly Available Database Of Vulnerable Apps, Daniel E. Krutz, Samuel A. Malachowsky

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Security is hard, and teaching security can be even harder. Here we describe a public educational activity to assist in the instruction of both students and developers in creating secure Android apps. Our set of activities includes example vulnerable applications, information about each vulnerability, steps on how to repair the vulnerabilities, and information about how to confirm that the vulnerability has been properly repaired. Our primary goal is to make these activities available to other instructors for use in their classrooms ranging from the K-12 to university settings. A secondary goal of this project is to foster interest in security …

Development Of A Jobs Database For Tracking Knowledge And Skills Expectations In The Workplace, Esa M. Rantanen, Christopher Claeys, Daniel Roder

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The primary objective of college education in applied disciplines is that it is relevant to the expectations for new professionals entering the labor market. Academic institutions should therefore pay close attention to the ever-changing skills and knowledge expectations in the labor market. These trends are not easy to track, however. Surveys of new professionals about their experiences in their first jobs or surveys of employers about their experiences with new hires suffer from low response rates, nonresponse bias, and the one-time nature of survey research. A better way to track labor market trends is to continually analyze human factors job …

Teaching Law And Digital Age Legal Practice With An Ai And Law Seminar: Justice, Lawyering And Legal Education In The Digital Age, Kevin D. Ashley

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A seminar on Artificial Intelligence ("Al") and Law can teach law students lessons about legal reasoning and legal practice in the digital age. Al and Law is a subfield of Al/computer science research that focuses on designing computer programs—computational models—that perform legal reasoning. These computational models are used in building tools to assist in legal practice and pedagogy and in studying legal reasoning in order to contribute to cognitive science and jurisprudence. Today, subject to a number of qualifications, computer programs can reason with legal rules, apply legal precedents, and even argue like a legal advocate.

This article provides a …

Required Features Of A Virtual Classroom Tool For Use In Higher Education, Arnold Hensman

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The integration of virtual-classroom systems into the arsenal of e-learning tools represents a major evolution in the landscape of modern distance education. For many courses, standard virtual learning environments (VLEs) provide only a foundation upon which to base a distance learning programme. However, synchronous live online-teaching software such as Microsoft Office Communicator and Adobe Connect allow educators to simulate a real-time classroom environment over the internet like never before. Since these tools are being used more and more within higher education, questions must be asked about how effective they ultimately can be in meeting student learning requirements. More importantly, what …

A Theoretical Framework For Serious Game Design: Exploring Pedagogy, Play And Fidelity And Their Implications For The Design Process, Pauline Rooney

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It is widely acknowledged that digital games can provide an engaging, motivating and “fun” experience for students. However an entertaining game does not necessarily constitute a meaningful, valuable learning experience. For this reason, experts espouse the importance of underpinning serious games with a sound theoretical framework which integrates and balances theories from two fields of practice: pedagogy and game design (Kiili, 2005; Seeney & Routledge, 2009). Additionally, with the advent of sophisticated, immersive technologies, and increasing interest in the opportunities for constructivist learning offered by these technologies, concepts of fidelity and its impact on student learning and engagement, have emerged …

Computer-Supported Peer Review In A Law School Context, Kevin D. Ashley, Ilya Goldin

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Legal instructors have been urged to incorporate peer reviewing into law school courses as a way to provide students much needed feedback. Peer review can benefit legal education, but only if law school instructors adopt peer review on a large scale, and for that, computer-supported peer review systems are crucial. These web-based systems orchestrate the mechanics of students submitting written assignments on-line and distributing them to other students for anonymous review, making it considerably easier for instructors to manage.

Beyond the problem of orchestrating mechanics, however, a deeper obstacle to widespread acceptance of peer review in legal education is the …

Computer Models For Legal Prediction, Kevin D. Ashley, Stephanie Bruninghaus

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Computerized algorithms for predicting the outcomes of legal problems can extract and present information from particular databases of cases to guide the legal analysis of new problems. They can have practical value despite the limitations that make reliance on predictions risky for other real-world purposes such as estimating settlement values. An algorithm's ability to generate reasonable legal arguments also is important. In this article, computerized prediction algorithms are compared not only in terms of accuracy, but also in terms of their ability to explain predictions and to integrate predictions and arguments. Our approach, the Issue-Based Prediction algorithm, is a program …

Capturing The Dialectic Between Principles And Cases, Kevin D. Ashley

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Theorists in ethics and law posit a dialectical relationship between principles and cases; abstract principles both inform and are informed by the decisions of specific cases. Until recently, however, it has not been possible to investigate or confirm this relationship empirically. This work involves a systematic study of a set of ethics cases written by a professional association's board of ethical review. Like judges, the board explains its decisions in opinions. It applies normative standards, namely principles from a code of ethics, and cites past cases. We hypothesized that the board's explanations of its decisions elaborated upon the meaning and …

Designing Electronic Casebooks That Talk Back: The Cato Program, Kevin D. Ashley

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Electronic casebooks offer important benefits of flexibility in control of presentation, connectivity, and interactivity. These additional degrees of freedom, however, also threaten to overwhelm students. If casebook authors and instructors are to achieve their pedagogical goals, they will need new methods for guiding students. This paper presents three such methods developed in an intelligent tutoring environment for engaging students in legal role-playing, making abstract concepts explicit and manipulable, and supporting pedagogical dialogues. This environment is built around a program known as CATO, which employs artificial intelligence techniques to teach first-year law students how to make basic legal arguments with cases. …