Vicki Lawal, Christine Stilwell, Rosemary Kuhn and Peter G. Underwood
This chapter examines the efforts undertaken to restructure the legal education system in South Africa and Nigeria. It investigates the connection between contextual influences…
Abstract
This chapter examines the efforts undertaken to restructure the legal education system in South Africa and Nigeria. It investigates the connection between contextual influences and professional development, particularly with respect to the concept of legal information literacy and the value of acquired educational skills in the context of legal practice. The chapter provides insights to the needs and challenges for graduate requirement for legal information literacy skills in the effort to ensure productivity in the legal education system in Africa. Data were obtained using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Outcomes from the study were supportive of the importance of information literacy as central to the development of professional competence. Findings also point to a need for greater collaboration between the legal education system and the legal profession in narrowing the gap between the teaching and practice of law specifically in the design and implementation of an information literacy framework for the legal education system.
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The study reported in this paper is part of a programme of ongoing research based on the model of the Information Search Process (ISP) developed in a series of prior studies by…
Abstract
The study reported in this paper is part of a programme of ongoing research based on the model of the Information Search Process (ISP) developed in a series of prior studies by Kuhlthau. This study sought to gain a better understanding of the variety of tasks that involve lawyers as a particular group of information workers, how they use information to accomplish their work, and the role mediators play in their process of information seeking and use. Findings revealed that these lawyers frequently were involved in complex tasks that required a constructive process of interpreting, learning and creating. To accomplish these complex tasks, they preferred printed texts over computer databases primarily because computer databases required well‐specified requests and did not offer an option for examining a wide range of information at one time. These lawyers called for an active potential role for mediators in ‘just for me’ services. ‘Just for me’ services would encompass designing systems to provide a wider range of access more compatible with the process of construction, applying and developing principles of classification that would offer a more uniform system for organising and accessing files, and providing direction in filtering the overwhelming amount of information available on electronic resources.
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One major aspect of T.D. Wilson’s research has been his insistence on situating the investigation of information behaviour within the context of its occurrence Ö within the…
Abstract
One major aspect of T.D. Wilson’s research has been his insistence on situating the investigation of information behaviour within the context of its occurrence Ö within the everyday world of work. The significance of this approach is reviewed in light of the notion of embodied cognition that characterises the evolving theoretical episteme in cognitive science research. Embodied cognition employs complex external props such as stigmergic structures and cognitive scaffoldings to reduce the cognitive burden on the individual and to augment human problem‐solving activities. The cognitive function of the classification scheme is described as exemplifying both stigmergic structures and cognitive scaffoldings. Two different but complementary approaches to the investigation of situated cognition are presented: cognition‐as‐scaffolding and cognition‐as‐infrastructure. Classification‐as‐scaffolding views the classification scheme as a knowledge storage device supporting and promoting cognitive economy. Classification‐as‐infrastructure views the classification system as a social convention that, when integrated with technological structures and organisational practices, supports knowledge management work. Both approaches are shown to build upon and extend Wilson’s contention that research is most productive when it attends to the social and organisational contexts of cognitive activity by focusing on the everyday world of work.
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Simon Attfield and John Dowell
Reports an interview study into information seeking and use by journalists at a national British newspaper. Describes work activity in the context of a series of behaviour shaping…
Abstract
Reports an interview study into information seeking and use by journalists at a national British newspaper. Describes work activity in the context of a series of behaviour shaping constraints and cognitive and external resources. Describes the journalist's information seeking as motivated by originality checking (of the angle), developing a personal understanding, discovering/confirming potential content and also describes information gathering and managing multiple information spaces. Shows how these are motivated by context, facilitated by resources, and how they enrich the journalist's resource space. Also shows that journalistic work is uncertain as a function of an uncertain context and their continually evolving plans. These result in provisional and unstable relevance judgments, and, during later stages, the reinitiating of preparatory information seeking activities, including the relocation and review of previously read documents. At the end presents a model to summarise the findings.
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Nafisat Toyin Adewale, Yushiana Mansor, Muhammad-Bashir Owolabi Yusuf and Ahmeed Onikosi
This study investigates the moderating effects of age, experience and educational qualification on the relationship between uncertainty and subjective task complexity among…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the moderating effects of age, experience and educational qualification on the relationship between uncertainty and subjective task complexity among lawyers working in private law firms in Lagos State, Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey method was adopted and data were gathered using questionnaires. The analysis was carried out based on partial least squares structural equation modelling using SmartPLS 2.0 M3 software.
Findings
Results showed that the effect of uncertainty on subjective task complexity is significantly moderated by age, educational attainment, experience of the lawyers under study.
Research limitations/implications
Although data were collected in the most populated state and commercial hub of Nigeria, generalisation based on findings may still need to be made with caution.
Practical implications
Attainment of higher educational qualification is highly important for lawyers even though the minimum requirement to practice as a lawyer is a degree. Lawyers with higher degrees (LLM and PhD) had less uncertainty and perceived their tasks to be less complex compared to their counterparts who had the first degree (LLB).
Originality/value
The demographic profile of professionals (age, education and experience) has proven to have an impact on their perception about task complexity as determined by uncertainty as found in this study.
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Brenda Dervin, CarrieLynn D. Reinhard and Zack Y. Kerr
The idea of adapting and designing services and products to serve “special” needs either for the public good or for commercial purposes is fundamentally an idea anchored in US…
Abstract
The idea of adapting and designing services and products to serve “special” needs either for the public good or for commercial purposes is fundamentally an idea anchored in US history. At root, it is a simple idea, albeit expressed in widely varying vocabularies across disciplines and professions. In the parlance of social work, public education, and public librarianship, for example, the idea has been repeatedly advanced over the years as a well-meaning reaching out to meet the needs of subpopulations not readily addressed by available service designs. In the parlance of the commercial sector, the idea has focused on market segmentation, dividing the population into finer and finer subgroups for the purposes of marketing products and services. One of the most recent labels for these activities has been marketing to audience “niches” in which the audience is identified “… as a certain definable market segment with demographic characteristics that make it attractive to advertisers.” (Fejes and Lennon, 2000, p. 37).
Yosef Solomon and Jenny Bronstein
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of serendipity in legal information seeking behavior of family law advocates, whom act in a challenging information…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of serendipity in legal information seeking behavior of family law advocates, whom act in a challenging information environment that lacks published court rulings.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative research using a web-based structured questionnaire, among Israeli family law advocates. Single stage systematic sampling, with random starting point and no recurring pattern of each sixth family law advocate on the Israel Bar Advocates List, was applied. Data from 135 Israeli family law advocates were used for analysis.
Findings
Electronic information sources were found as most serendipitous; family law advocates were identified as super encounterers; four types of professional background concerns and seven legal professional contributions of the unexpected encounters with court rulings, were identified. Furthermore, findings support several frameworks presented on earlier information encounter literature.
Research limitations/implications
Data absence on demographic and professional variables distributions of Israeli family law advocates was a limiting factor, compensated by the systematic sampling method used, thus can be regarded to reflect the views of the entire study population. Surveys’ reliance on self-reporting recalls of serendipitous events is also a limiting factor, though predicted and acceptable in this matter since chance encounters occur unexpectedly and are complex to capture.
Practical implications
Chance encounters may expose lawyers to meaningful information it is unlikely they were able to find because its limited publication, and assist them keep up with current law for better serves their clients.
Originality/value
The study augments the current empirically based knowledge on serendipity and provides insights into legal information chance encounters among a little-studied group of knowledge workers: family law advocates.