What was the challenge you needed to address?
Within professional Law practice, the use of digital skills and accompanying digital literacy has accelerated as more interactive web-based client-centred engagements. We as providers of degree programmes need to also accelerate how we deliver, nurture and develop professional digital skills in our students. These are vital for our graduates, as the legal sector moves rapidly towards a more digitalised way of professional work.
What was the innovation?
Describe what you did and why it was innovative A key development for this year was to introduce an ‘interactive digital (website) design’ assessment in our year two Human Rights in the Global Context (HRGC) module. Within HRGC, students were required to design a website fit for online access, ensuring it contained relevant information accessible to the general public. They were required to consider issues of accessibility, style and layout with suitable focus on issues pertaining to human rights. The exact topic selected was at the discretion of each student, as long as it fell within the parameters of the module. The module included specific teaching sessions on digital presentation, website design and focused on four principles of digital literacy, namely comprehension, interdependence, social factors and curation. The website formed the majority of the assessment mark, and students provided an accompanying reflective log on their research, design process and professional skill development.
What was the impact? e.g student feedback, outcome of changes etc
Student feedback overall was very positive, and the Law School is certain that the students will benefit from developing these professional digitals skills within their future employment. Given the success of this module, the School will explore how such assessment pieces can be further embedded into a Law professional skills toolkit.