Author Archives: Dustin Lewis

Rotisserie and Question Tool

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H2O is a suite of online classroom tools. In addition to providing a platform to create and distribute digital casebooks, textbooks, and modules [link], H2O also includes a Rotisserie [link] and a Question Tool [link]. The Rotisserie (which we recently moved under its new directory, as part of our efforts to centralize H2O) and the Question Tool are active and being used by teachers and students—and we welcome more users. The Berkman Center plans to continue supporting both into the future, and we would be keen to hear from potential partners interested in these tools. We may also update the tools, and potentially incorporate them (or at least the Rotisserie) into the current H2O theme and suite (which underwent a design overhaul late last spring).

 

New Show/Hide Button

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New Features

To help streamline the process of viewing and interacting with collages on H2O, today we deployed a new feature — the “Show/Hide” button, which replaces the two separate “Text” and “Layers” buttons that used to exist for collages. The “Show/Hide” button is located at the top of each collage. It allows you to decide what text and annotations to view, what layers to highlight, and whether — if you have remixed a preexisting collage with at least one layer — to delete all of the inherited layers. Alongside of this new button, we have also, based on strong user feedback, added a “Required” layer for all collages, so that professors can even more easily and quickly start selecting the text that they want to designate as required.

A sample view of the new Show/Hide button

Here are the different parts of the “Show/Hide” button:

Text

— Select not only if you want to show all of the text of the collage, or just some or all of the layers in the collage, but also whether you want to default to the author’s version of the collage.

Annotations

— Decide whether you want all annotations to be automatically shown, or contracted.

Highlights

— Select if you want to turn the highlight on or off for each layer in the collage. (Note: if you turn a highlight on, and then print the collage by clicking on the printer icon, then H2O automatically maintains the shown highlights in the print with an underline.)

Actions

— If you remixed a preexisting collage that already had at least one layer, then you will have the option of deleting all inheriting layers in one fell swoop.

Short Video Guide

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Erika Wayne — the Deputy Director of the Robert Crown Law Library and a Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School — has developed a helpful short video guide to using H2O. The video is a great jumping off point for students looking for useful information about how to navigate some of H2O’s basic functionalities.

The video is available online here.

The most recent H2O User Guide, for reference, is available online here.

Fall 2013 Course Materials on H2O

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Our team has assembled a playlist that contains the fall 2013 course materials that have been developed on H2O by professors from Harvard, Stanford, NYU, Boston College, and Boston University. You can find that list of materials at < http://h2o.law.harvard.edu/playlists/2062 >. If you are also teaching materials developed on H2O this fall, let us know so that we may add your materials to the list!

Karlan’s Torts – First Installment

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We’re very excited indeed to note that Professor Pam Karlan of Stanford Law School has made the first installment of her Fall 2013 Torts class materials on H2O; those materials are available at < http://h2o.law.harvard.edu/playlists/1995 >. Professor Karlan has added and selected an array of edited cases (some adapted from edits by other H2O users, such as Professor Jonathan Zittrain, and others she edited from scratch). Professor Karlan has also added many new introductions, and has included numerous links to videos and other external sources (see, for instance, her collection of materials for “An Introduction to Torts“.)

Cohen’s Civil Procedure

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We are very excited to note that Professor I. Glenn Cohen’s Fall 2013 Civil Procedure digital casebook is available on H2O at < http://h2o.law.harvard.edu/playlists/1374 >.

Students in Professor Cohen’s course may make their own version (“remix” in H2O’s parlance) of the edited cases, and then add their own highlights and annotations (after deciding whether to set their version to public or private), which will be maintained in the print version (if the students decide to print their versions).

Other professors may adopt and adapt some or all of Professor Cohen’s casebook on H2O under the site’s CC-BY-NC-SA license (per the Terms of Service). As Professor Cohen notes in his “Acknowledgements”:

“I undertook this project in the summer of 2013 with the hope of helping students avoid the high costs of textbooks, generating content that could be used and improved upon by others, and tailoring my materials to my own needs. I hope you will enjoy and disseminate it widely. …”

Kalscheur’s Seminar on Church and State

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Associate Professor Gregory Kalscheur, S.J., of Boston College Law School, has developed a set of materials on H2O that are slated to be used for part of his fall 2013 “Church and State” Seminar. You can read — and create your own remix — of Professor Kalscheur’s materials here: < http://h2o.law.harvard.edu/playlists/1324 >. The materials are arranged around topics such as “Introduction and History,” “Free Exercise of Religion in the Regulatory State,” and “Religious Displays and Religion in the Curriculum.”

 

Quinn’s Corporations – A Virtual Casebook

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We’re very excited to note that Brian JM Quinn, an Assistant Professor at Boston College Law School who is visiting at Boston University School of Law this fall, has created “Corporations – A Virtual Casebook” on H2O. You can read — as well as remix your own version of — the casebook here: http://h2o.law.harvard.edu/playlists/1162.

New User Guide–How to H2O

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Hot off the (digital) presses: the H2O team is pleased to announce that we’ve updated and significantly expanded the “How to H2O” User Guide. You can find it here: How to H2O User Guide. This version reflects and incorporates many of the design and user-experience changes that we have developed and implemented in recent months. We very much welcome your feedback, especially if anything is unclear or if we missed anything.

Adding new cases

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H2O has nearly 4,000 cases — with more added every week — that users can edit by making a collage of the case and then applying their own layers, annotations, and highlights. The H2O team adds all cases into the platform. If H2O doesn’t have a case that you’d like to use, there are two ways that it can be added.

1. The preferred route is to send an e-mail to h2o@cyber.law.harvard.edu with a list of cases that you want to be added to H2O (please include, if possible, the short name and citation of each case).

2. The other option is to request a case via H2O itself. Login to your user account, then navigate to the cases section (by clicking the cases icon at the top of the window). Once you’re in the cases section, there should be a “Request case” button next to the search field. Click the “Request case” button, provide the relevant information for the case, and hit submit.