Teaching Legal Research Online

Legal Reference Services Quarterly, Vol. 28, pp. 239-270, 2009

U of Maryland Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2009-51

Posted: 19 Nov 2009

See all articles by Susan Herrick

Susan Herrick

University of Maryland - Thurgood Marshall Law Library

Sara Kelley Burriesci

Georgetown University - Law Center, Edward Bennett Williams Law Library

Date Written: 2009

Abstract

Online instruction has great potential for accommodating the learning styles and preferences of Millennial law students, as well as for the effective teaching of legal research in the digital age. While integrating instructional technology into a face-to-face classroom legal research course is highly desirable and relatively easy, designing and teaching a purely distance or hybrid distance course provides some unique challenges as well as some distinct benefits for both instructors and students. This article will first evaluate individual instructional technologies independently of each other, since any of them could be used to supplement traditional face-to-face research instruction, whether formal or informal. Consideration will then be given to special problems of teaching a graded legal research course entirely or predominantly online. Legal research instruction presents some opportunities for experimentation and innovation with online learning techniques that may serve students better, accommodate the librarian’s technology skills and abilities and her time constraints, and inspire others at our law schools to follow suit.

Keywords: e-learning, distance education, teaching online, tutorials

Suggested Citation

Herrick, Susan and Kelley Burriesci, Sara, Teaching Legal Research Online (2009). Legal Reference Services Quarterly, Vol. 28, pp. 239-270, 2009, U of Maryland Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2009-51, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1508539

Susan Herrick (Contact Author)

University of Maryland - Thurgood Marshall Law Library ( email )

501 West Fayette Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
United States

Sara Kelley Burriesci

Georgetown University - Law Center, Edward Bennett Williams Law Library ( email )

600 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
United States

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