The Virtual Classroom : Legally Blended

The LLBH Online at Griffith College began accepting learners in August 2014; it was the first honours law degree to be delivered in an online format in Ireland. This short paper will examine the challenges, opportunities and possibilities of an online Legum Baccalaureus. We (Alice Childs and Mary O’Toole) will also consider the above in light of recent European and national policies such as the Roadmap for Enhancement in a Digital World 2015-2017.
The opportunities and possibilities are transformative – the use of emergent technologies to teach students effectively and actively, mature students now have the opportunity to engage in life-long learning, wider access to legal qualifications and the development of flexible learning pathways.
Our key concern is to ensure that students feel they are gaining a high quality experience. The other challenges are also daunting and they include: how to train staff quickly and effectively, how to communicate with staff most of whom are at opposite ends of the country, creating engaging content to a tough deadline and overcoming hardware and broadband problems.
In early August 2014, two learning technologists were recruited in Dublin and a lecturing team was appointed in Cork. We became the LLB online team and started to create a dynamic, interactive programme. We were supported by the College through an active E-learning committee and high level strategic commitment. From the beginning we realised that it is vital to measure how well we were meeting our objective of delivering an excellent student experience. In order to measure this we had three methods: informal feedback through phonecalls and emails, informal feedback at a face to face meeting, and two online surveys to date. In this paper we will examine our findings, and we will consider the opportunities and challenges we faced and how recent policies are impacting this field.