Legal Risk Management for an E-Learning Web Services Collaboration

Abstract

The interdisciplinary nature of security risks requires an integrated analysis, where legal aspects play an important role. We propose a method for legal risk management which can be utilized to identify, evaluate and treat legal and security risks. This method is based on existing security risk analysis methods, and makes use of graphical modelling to facilitate the communication between experts from different disciplines who need to collaborate when analysing the risks and possibilities for treatments. The paper presents a brief case study of an imaginary collaboration in the field of e-learning, based on Web Services technologies. The study confirms that legal and technical risks can and should be considered jointly, since technical risks may be mitigated through the use of legal means (e.g. a contract rule), and some legal risks may need to be approached with a combined strategy, which includes legal aspects as well as technical and business aspects.

Keywords: Risk analysis, legal methods, information security, intellectual property rights (IPR), e-learning

JEL Classification: K12, D81