Toward National Regulation Of Legal Technology: A Path Forward For Access To Justice

Legal technology can help close the access-to-justice gap by increasing efficiency, democratizing access to information, and helping consumers solve their own legal problems or connecting them with lawyers who can. But, without proper design, technology can also consolidate power, automate bias, and magnify inequality. The state-by-state regulation of legal services has not adapted to this emerging technology-driven landscape that is continually being reshaped by artificial intelligence–driven tools like ChatGPT. Confusion abounds concerning whether use of these technologies amounts to unauthorized practice of law, leads to discrimination, adequately protects client data, violates the duty of technological competence, or requires prohibited cross-industry business structures. Despite widespread calls for regulatory reforms that respond to these uncertainties, few jurisdictions have acted, as little data exists about the use, benefits, and harms of rapidly emerging legal technologies. This Article argues that, in light of these problems, regulatory reform processes should be explored at the national level, where expertise, as well as empirical benefits and economic advantages, would yield more informed and impactful reforms aimed at balancing consumer protection and access to justice. The Article provides a comprehensive proposal for an opt-in national legal services “sandbox”—a regulatory reform mechanism that carefully tests innovative services through temporary safe harbors and data generation that leads to more informed regulatory decision-making. Although legal services are traditionally regulated at the state level, other industries have benefited from licensing individuals locally while regulating the technologies they use nationally, and state bars already rely on national entities to help with other regulatory functions, like drafting rules of professional conduct. Legal technology’s potential to help close the justice gap—a national crisis—warrants a similar national response

Scalable Learning Environments for Teaching Cybersecurity Hands-on

This Innovative Practice full paper describes a technical innovation for scalable teaching of cybersecurity hands-on classes using interactive learning environments. Hands-on experience significantly improves the practical skills of learners. However, the preparation and delivery of hands-on classes usually do not scale. Teaching even small groups of students requires a substantial effort to prepare the class environment and practical assignments. Further issues are associated with teaching large classes, providing feedback, and analyzing learning gains. We present our research effort and practical experience in designing and using learning environments that scale up hands-on cybersecurity classes. The environments support virtual networks with full-fledged operating systems and devices that emulate real-world systems. The classes are organized as simultaneous training sessions with cybersecurity assignments and learners' assessment. For big classes, with the goal of developing learners' skills and providing formative assessment, we run the environment locally, either in a computer lab or at learners' own desktops or laptops. For classes that exercise the developed skills and feature summative assessment, we use an on-premises cloud environment. Our approach is unique in supporting both types of deployment. The environment is described as code using open and standard formats, defining individual hosts and their networking, configuration of the hosts, and tasks that the students have to solve. The environment can be repeatedly created for different classes on a massive scale or for each student on-demand. Moreover, the approach enables learning analytics and educational data mining of learners' interactions with the environment. These analyses inform the instructor about the student's progress during the class and enable the learner to reflect on a finished training. Thanks to this, we can improve the student class experience and motivation for further learning. Using the presented environments KYPO Cyber Range Platform (CRP) and Cyber Sandbox Creator (CSC), we delivered the classes on-site or remotely for various target groups of learners (K-12, university students, and professional learners). The learners value the realistic nature of the environments that enable exercising theoretical concepts and tools. The instructors value time-efficiency when preparing and deploying the hands-on activities. Engineering and computing educators can freely use our software, which we have released under an open-source license. We also provide detailed documentation and exemplary hands-on training to help other educators adopt our teaching innovations and enable sharing of reusable components within the community

CS Circles: An In-Browser Python Course for Beginners

Computer Science Circles is a free programming website for beginners that is designed to be fun, easy to use, and accessible to the broadest possible audience. We teach Python since it is simple yet powerful, and the course content is well-structured but written in plain language. The website has over one hundred exercises in thirty lesson pages, plus special features to help teachers support their students. It is available in both English and French. We discuss the philosophy behind the course and its design, we describe how it was implemented, and we give statistics on its use.Comment: To appear in SIGCSE 201

Strategic Management

This Grants Collection for Strategic Management was created under a Round Two ALG Textbook Transformation Grant. Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process. Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials: Linked Syllabus Initial Proposal Final Reporthttps://oer.galileo.usg.edu/business-collections/1002/thumbnail.jp

Floodopoly: enhancing the learning experience of students in water engineering courses

This study focuses on the utilisation of lab-based activities to enhance the learning experience of engineering students studying water engineering and geosciences courses. Specifically, the use of “floodopoly” as a physical model demonstration in improving the students’ understanding of the relevant processes of flooding, infrastructure scour and sediment transport, and improve retention and performance in simulation of these processes in engineering design courses, is discussed. The effectiveness of lab-based demonstration is explored using a survey assessing the weight of various factors that might influence students’ performance and satisfaction. It reveals how lab-centred learning, overall course success is linked with student motivation and the students’ perception of an inclusive teaching environment. It also explores the effectiveness of the implementation of student-centred and inquiry-guided teaching and various methods of assessment. The analysis and discussion are informed by students’ responses to a specifically designed questionnaire, showing an improvement of the satisfaction rates compared to traditional class-based learning modules. For example, more students (85%) reported that they perceived the lab-based environment as an excellent contribution to their learning experience, while less students (about 57%) were as satisfied for a traditional class-based course delivery. Such findings can be used to improve students’ learning experience by introducing physical model demonstrations, similar to those offered herein

Conceptualizing the Regulation of Virtual Currencies and Providers: Friction Points in State and Federal Approaches to Regulating Providers of Payments Execution and Custody Services and Products in the United States

This essay evaluates the state of regulation by the United States government and State legislatures of participants in emerging virtual-currency businesses. It points to friction points as both the federal government and the States experiment with their own regulatory authority over virtual-currency businesses and provides a taxonomy of differing approaches to regulating such businesses. The essay takes the position that the States need to act in the near term if they wish to maintain their longstanding role as regulators of non-depository providers of financial products and services—or they risk being preempted by Congress or federal regulatory actions. This essay also suggests that regulating providers of virtual-currency products and services is a course preferable to regulating the products and services themselves

Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Intelligent Assistant for Personalized and Adaptive Learning in Higher Education

This paper presents a novel framework, Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Intelligent Assistant (AIIA), for personalized and adaptive learning in higher education. The AIIA system leverages advanced AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to create an interactive and engaging learning platform. This platform is engineered to reduce cognitive load on learners by providing easy access to information, facilitating knowledge assessment, and delivering personalized learning support tailored to individual needs and learning styles. The AIIA's capabilities include understanding and responding to student inquiries, generating quizzes and flashcards, and offering personalized learning pathways. The research findings have the potential to significantly impact the design, implementation, and evaluation of AI-enabled Virtual Teaching Assistants (VTAs) in higher education, informing the development of innovative educational tools that can enhance student learning outcomes, engagement, and satisfaction. The paper presents the methodology, system architecture, intelligent services, and integration with Learning Management Systems (LMSs) while discussing the challenges, limitations, and future directions for the development of AI-enabled intelligent assistants in education.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures, 9659 word

Governing the Gold Rush into Emerging Markets: A Case Study of Indonesia’s Regulatory Responses to the Expansion of Chinese-Backed Online P2P Lending

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending has the potential to boost financial inclusion in emerging markets. This paper contributes to the literature on fintech governance in emerging Asian markets. It examines the case of the Indonesian government’s approach in regulating the P2P lending sector using both primary interviews and secondary firm-level data. Driven by regulation tightening in China and regulatory gaps in Indonesia, Chinese investments became the largest in this sector contributing, however, to growing risks from illegal business practices. The Indonesian government responded by creating new regulations and institutions, mitigating risks without stifling the potential for financial inclusion. We conclude a proactive approach towards monitoring and regulating emerging high-tech industries should be sought by strengthening links with industry and civil society, and through international cooperation for policy and knowledge sharing