SPRING 2006
Cyberlaw
Course No.:  9200-710-001
Course ID:  17105
Tu, Th 4:45 - 6:15 p.m.
Room W-206
Professor Jay Dratler, Jr.
Room 231D (IP Alcove)
(330) 972-7972
dratler@uakron.edu,
dratler@neo.rr.com
Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006   Jay Dratler, Jr.  
For permission, see CMI.


Course Requirements and Policies


Electronic Communication and Examination

All class information and assignments will be posted on this Website.  You should be comfortable enough with Web "surfing" to navigate through this Website, find what you want, save it on your hard drive and, if necessary, print it out.  Please be sure to check this Website when in doubt as to your assignment or any changes in the class schedule.

Some time-critical or urgent messages may be sent by e-mail.  More important, you may receive your final examination and submit your answers by e-mail.  During the first class session, you will be asked to specify one or more e-mail addresses for communication in this course.  You should check the address(es) that you have specified for e-mail pertaining to this course at least twice per week, including once on the day before each class.  To avoid last-minute panic regarding the final examination, please try to select e-mail addresses that will be valid for the entire semester.  You may provide more than one e-mail address.
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Attendance and Class Participation

This is not a course for "back benchers."  What you get out of it will depend strongly on your attendance and diligent preparation.  Accordingly, regular attendance, good preparation, and participation in class discussions will be mandatory and will be considered in grading.  A good record may increase your course grade one notch (e.g., from B+ to A-, or from C- to C), and particularly poor performance in class may drop your grade one notch.

You may excuse yourself from class discussion and nevertheless attend class no more than twice during the semester.  You may exercise this option only by giving give me an "unprepared" note before class.  Please use a full page for each such note (little slips of paper may get lost!), and please include: (1) your printed name, (2) the date, (3) the words "I pass" or "unprepared," and (4) your signature.
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Evaluation of Your Performance

Grades will be based primarily upon an e-mail final examination.  You may take this examination at any place of your choosing and during a designated 24- or 36-hour time window.  The examination will have a time limit (three to five consecutive hours, depending on class size) and a word limit (usually 2,000 to 3,000 words, depending on time) and will be designed to give no credit whatsoever to pre-prepared or "canned" passages.  During the examination, you may consult any material that you yourself have prepared, and any generally published material, including LEXIS and other legal research aids. The following materials, however, should be sufficient for the examination and are strongly recommended as part of your learning process:
    1) An outline or issues checklist that you have prepared, on a single letter-sized (8-1/2" x 11") sheet of paper, both sides; and
    2) Your Statute Book, annnotated by you, and your printouts of reading from this Website, with your own annotations (but no one else's).
The obvious purpose of recommending these materials and notifying you in advance is to encourage you to: (1) begin making an outline or other conceptual overview of the course as early as possible in the semester; and (2) annotate your reading materials in a way that will be useful for the examination and perhaps later in practice.  "Pulling the course together" is best done periodically throughout the semester, not just before the final exam.

Your grade will not be based entirely upon the final examination, however.  Your class performance, participation, and attendance also will count.  At the semester's end, I will assess your overall class performance; those whose performance is consistently superior (typically from 10% to 30% of the class) will receive a one-step advance (for example from B+ to A-, or from C to C+) in their examination grades.  As is true in all my classes, quality will count more than quantity.  Consistently helpful participation may boost your grade, but passing or "winging it" when called upon will count against you.
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