Up in the Clouds: Forecasting Legal Education Challenges and Opportunities for Data Big and Small

Law schools are awash with data of all types:  from grades to student demographics, from bar and employment statistics, and from fundraising figures to salary details. Additionally, with the advancement of various technologies, fulfilling teaching and administrative functions and duties has become (somewhat) easier and more efficient as these technologies provide a convenience that makes communication faster and easier; that makes research faster and more accessible; and that makes the storage of documents, student assignments, grades, etc., more convenient and readily available.  
Even while law schools seek ways to utilize these data and technologies to improve results and reputation while responding to growing demands for transparency from applicants and accreditation bodies, institutional inertia and legal requirements (FERPA, state statutes, college/university policy) provide faculty and administrators with a number of challenges in an effort to also maintain student and data privacy. At the same time, although these conveniences have revolutionized legal education, maintaining student and data privacy may be hampered by a lack of financial and technological resources for effective data collection, management, and analysis.

This session will address and provide best practices on both the challenges and opportunities of data collection and use by law schools, including:

• An overview of FERPA, including responsibilities of faculty, staff, and administrators regarding the collection and sharing of student education records and other information, as well as their responsibilities under the purview of state statutes and college or university policies, particularly as they relate to the various technologies used in teaching and administrative functions.
• A look at how technologies, such as online storage systems like Dropbox and Google Docs and vendor provided course management systems like TWEN and LexisNexis, are being used in legal educational settings and how these systems relate to FERPA and the protection of data/information posted by faculty. 
• Free and low-cost data analytics tools (including discount or zero-cost educational licenses for Salesforce);
• Ways to allay concerns and obtain faculty and administration buy-in; and
• How better use of data can help alleviate the current existential crisis in legal education.

Slides: 

6-13-13 CALIcon13 Presentation on Data in Law School.pdf

CALI2013.ppt

Video: