Automatic Document Classification in Integrated Legal Content Collections

Since most legal documents are released in digital form nowadays it has become more and more important to be able to search these documents adequately. Metadata, such as the area of law a certain document is about, included with digital publications can help to find similar publications faster, however the included metadata are very often incomplete. Automatic document classification can supplement essential metadata in legal documents released from different sources, such that integrated legal content systems can offer uniform options for the selection of relevant documents

Parsing User Queries using Context Free Grammars

In legal information retrieval, query cooking can significantly improve recall and precision. Context free grammars can be used to effectively parse user queries, even if the number of items torecognize is high and recognition patterns are complicated

Concepts in Computer Aided Essay Assessment: Improving Consistency by Monitoring the Assessors

This paper focuses on a traditional educational skill, namely the assessment of student work. Whereas ICT has left a considerable mark on, for instance, the administrative support of educational activities and on the use of legal sources, other parts of legal training have seen almost no alterations in the past few decades. One such area is the grading of essay or open question student assignments. The CODAS Text Grader tool, described here, can be used to alleviate the task of marking this type of student work. Teachers still have an essential role with this. What changes is the ‘level’ at which the assessment of the student work takes place: from individual to survey, from marking to ranking. The CODAS software can also be used for a related task: it can assess the assessors. It contains functions to assess – and if necessary correct – the marks for comparable essays awarded by one specific teacher or even by a team of several teachers. Bringing transparency to the process of grading can only be of benefit to the education system.This paper was originally published in the proceedings of the 2005 BILETA conference (Belfast, 6-9 April 2005)

De maatschappelijke urgentie van juridisch kennismanagement

Juristen verrichten hun werk in een samenleving die sterk aan veranderingen onderhevig is. Technologie, met name op het gebied van informatieverwerking, speelt bij die veranderingen een belangrijke rol. Er bestaat de laatste jaren veel aandacht voor het omgaan met informatie en kennis. De begrippen informatiemanagement en vooral kennismanagement spelen daarbij een telkens terugkerende rol. Kennis is in veel organisaties van strategisch belang voor de bedrijfsvoering geworden. Daarom kan kennismanagement evenmin als algemeen management decentraal worden uitgevoerd. Een en ander heeft ook voor juristen gevolgen. Zij dienen zich te verdiepen in de grondbeginselen en toepassingen van kennismanagement, maar ook in die van algemeen management. Deze bewering wordt in dit rapport nader onderbouwd aan de hand van een analyse van een aantal maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen. Telkens wordt daarbij het belang voor juristen die werkzaam zijn in verschillende functies aangegeven