Computer-Supported Peer Review in a Law School Context

Speaker(s):

Legal instructors can provide law students with much needed feedback by incorporating peer reviewing in their law school courses. Computer-supported peer review systems can help instructors conveniently manage peer reviewing even in large courses. Web-based systems like the SWoRD program, developed at the University of Pittsburgh, orchestrate the mechanics of students submitting written assignments on-line and distributing them to other students for anonymous review. SWoRD guides student reviewers with rubrics of instructor-provided prompts that focus on pedagogically relevant review criteria.
This session will explain how legal instructors can use SWoRD to administer a computer-supported peer-review writing exercise in their own courses. It also introduces some research projects and results that explore the pedagogical potential of computer-supported peer review in a legal context. For instance, recent results suggest that law students who are learning course material for the first time can provide each other valuable feedback even on substantive legal issues. Natural language processing and other AI techniques are being applied to help reviewers prepare pedagogically useful reviews, to integrate computer-supported argument diagramming to assist law students in planning written arguments, and to support students in revising their papers more effectively.

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