From IST 432, Fall 2002, Professor John Bagby:

Summary:
The group portal projects are electronic reports that require research by all class groups. The project culminates in a final report configured as a webpage or portal that provides an electronic gateway to an understanding of the topic for use by others. Portals should enable other users to explore and gain a deeper understanding of an important legal, regulatory and/or public policy issue in information science and technology.

Purpose:
This project is designed to implement problem based learning in a group setting that accomplishes the identification and analysis of a research problem. These projects generally enhance research and critical thinking skills by requiring the search and retrieval, filtering and analysis of relevant information organized into an effective web-based presentation report. The opportunity for group selection of topics should enhance student interest by providing group work consistent with personal interests. The phased delivery of preliminary work and the final portal provides opportunities for revision and refinement that should lead to quality work products. Portal project groups should benefit by enhancing their group work skills: conferring and collaborating to identify important issues, using group processes to select a topic appropriate to the groups interests and the course s subject matter and using group project management dynamics to conduct considerable research that informs the preparation of the portal.

Classmates should also be enriched by the work of every other group's work. That is, each portal should be designed to engage the interest of others outside each group from the whole class. These other users should be able to obtain an understanding about each other group s legal, regulatory and/or public policy issue related to information science and technology after the final portals are posted to the web.

Tasks required:
The final deliverable is a report, configured as a website or portal, that provides a problem statement, explanatory text discussing the problem, a synthesis of divergent materials and well-defended clear conclusions. Appropriate and liberal use of working hotlinks should be provided throughout the report linking to various relevant on-line materials that are directly related to the topic, including such resources as laws, regulations, articles, commentaries, research reports and other relevant information. Critical thinking is needed to identify a topic, most likely a controversial one, which will then require investigation about the problem, including the positions of various advocates. The report should synthesize these materials, possibly proposing and defending a solution.

Groups should design and implement their project steadily throughout the course, submit timely progress reports according to the schedule of deliverables below and assure that this culminates with the project s timely completion and electronic submission. Portals will be posted to the course website and all class members are expected to study and navigate every other group s portal. Some content from the portals will be tested on the final exam.

Schedule of Deliverables:
The group portal projects should be approached in stages, each of which culminates in the electronic submission of a progress report according to the schedule below. Implicit in this schedule is a general project workplan but groups may modify their particular workplan so long as the scheduled reports are timely filed. The following workplan schedule of deliverables is mandatory: each of the four items must be submitted on or before 5:00 pm Eastern time on the dates as specified:

September 15: topic selection abstract due, a tentatively titled problem statement (approximately one paragraph in length) identifying and describing a legal/regulatory/public policy issue in information science and technology; this commits all group members to this project.

October 11: outline and workplan due, a detailed substantive outline revealing that considerable information search and retrieval has occurred and that this initial research shows a developing understanding of the major issues involved. This progress report should also specify a workplan: an expected set of tasks scheduled so that the project will be timely completed.

November 15: preliminary draft due, a largely complete draft that will benefit from revisions as the group responds to the instructor s critique.

November 27: final portal submission revised and polished final submission, evaluated for 20% of each student s grade. Portals are posted to the web for use by all other classmates in studying for the final exam.

Evaluation:
Group portal projects will be evaluated on the following criteria:
1. Timeliness and completeness of all progress reports and final portal submission
2. Depth of analysis
3. Clarity of writing and other exposition
4. Accuracy, navigability and extent of relevant links

Topic Selection:
Topics should be selected and submitted in abstract form by each group (including names of all group members) on or before September 15, 2002. The topic each group selects should result from deliberation by all group members and directly relate to the subject matter of the course, IST 432, e.g., the legal, regulatory and/or public policy environment of information sciences and technology. These topic submissions will be evaluated by the instructor and this may result in consultation between the group and instructor to optimally scope these projects. Changes may result from the consultation, such as, broadening or narrowing the scope, increasing relevance to course goals or retargeting some of the expected activities. Groups are encouraged to explore the course subject matter to identify relevant topics. However, the following is a list of available topics of considerable and broadly recognized relevance:

1. Computer forensics
2. Electronically available legal/regulatory information
3. Arbitration in eCommerce contracts
4. eGovernment: methods, parallels/departures from eCommerce, online access to government documents, EDGAR, eFOIA
5. First Amendment: speech online, Junger v. Daily, infringement, obscenity, defamation
6. Constitutional questions in intellectual property: IP clause interpretation, 11th Amendment litigation, takings
7. Computer crime: denial of service, hacking, theft of services, stalking, gambling
8. Cyberterrorism, moneylaundering, USA Patriot Act
9. Trespass, terms and conditions of website use, data harvesting
10. Defamation in electronic media, email, chat
11. Peer to peer, infringement, Napster and beyond, anticircumvention
12. Impact of networking and electronic (digital) works on copyright, derivative works
13. Electronic music problems, MP3, RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia, copying, distribution
14. Copyright licensing, multimedia, network licensing
15. Trade secrets in software, protection/security methods, vulnerabilities
16. Reverse engineering: permissible use, limitations
17. Database protections in IT contexts
18. Bots, search engines, P2P, infringement, trespass
19. Sui generic database protections, EU, US, states
20. Business method patents
21. Trademarks and domain names, cybersquatting
22. Online auctions, auction rules, eB2B eXchanges, EDI
23. Wraps: shrink, click, browse, terms in the box
24. Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act, content licensing
25. Electronic bill presentment, electronic commercial documents, transferable documents
26. Micro-payments
27. Digital signatures, E-SIGN, Uniform Electronic Transactions Act
28. Electronic Agents
29. Bankruptcy in networked ecomomy, dot.coms, IP and other intangibles, telecoms
30. Employer vs. employee control and ownership of IP
31. Non-Competes, inevitable disclosure doctrine
32. Confidentiality, NDAs
33. IP and antitrust: Microsoft, standards
34. Privacy of database information: financial (Gramm/Leach/Bliley), health (HIPPA), online (children), international (EU Directive), Opting