Seminar: The Law in Cyberspace

Jon Weinberg

We'll meet every Wednesday from 1:25 to 3:25 p.m.

Most of the material you'll be reading in preparation for class over the course of the seminar will be selected by your classmates. For each topic, the person assigned to cover that topic will create a reading assignment, after consulting with me. The reading assignment will contain citations to the assigned readings (including URLs for material available on the Internet), along with any additional material and instructions.

Typically, the student who created the reading assignment will begin the hour's discussion with a short (5 to 10 minute) presentation. Every member of the class will then be expected to speak for about two minutes about the assigned material. At the end of the class, the student who created the reading assignment will conclude with another 5 to 10 minute presentation.

We'll typically cover two topics each week. I expect every student to attend every class, and to have something thoughtful to say on every topic.

Both because it'll be helpful in creating your assignments and writing your papers, and as a matter of general principle, it's a good thing for you to keep up with Internet law developments. One excellent source is Professor Michael Geist's free daily email service Internet Law News, <http://www.bna.com/ilaw/>.

Paper topic selection:

You can consult a list of potential paper topics at http://www.law.wayne.edu/weinberg/law-in-cyberspace/2008-cyberspace-topics.html . Please send me by email, as soon as possible, but no later than 6 p.m. on Monday, September 1, your preferred five topics from that list in ranked order. You may also list up to three dates that you would find inconvenient for your scheduled presentation.

I'll try to put together a schedule that flows in a coherent progression, based on the topics you each select. If what's really important to you, say, is that your presentation is scheduled during November and you don't care much what the topic is, tell me that and I'll try to take it into account in scheduling. If you'd like to write on a topic not on the topics list, please discuss it with me before turning in your selections, and send me a short description of the paper you envision writing and the sort of materials you expect to assign to the class.

I'll try to honor preferences, and will, in the event of a conflict, make selections on the basis of the class's scheduling convenience. Within those constraints, I'll give topic choices turned in earlier precedence over choices turned in later, so it's in your interest to turn in your topic selections as early as possible.

Topic selections and all other assignments should be e-mailed to me at weinberg@wayne.edu. In general, if you send me something via e-mail and don't receive a confirmation within 24 hours that I've received it, please send it again.

Creating your assignments:

I'll give you some initial suggestions for sources to consult to start your research. After you've developed some ideas for your assignment, we should discuss your plans either in person or by email.

Two weeks before the class scheduled for your topic, please send me an email message giving me a brief description of the material you plan to assign.

You should turn in your assignment via email (to me at weinberg@wayne.edu) by 5 p.m. Sunday, ten days before the class scheduled for your topic. Late assignments will result in a grade deduction. You can submit reading assignments in either HTML or in plain (ASCII) text. (Recent versions of all major word processing programs include utilities to convert files into either HTML or ASCII.) You may supplement your assignments with material available only in hard copy format, so long as you distribute it in class the week before your topic is scheduled.

I won't put anything up on the server until I've checked the links to make sure they work. To the extent that I need to spend a substantial amount of time correcting your citations and links, I'll take that into account in assigning that portion of your grade.

Be original, creative and clever in preparing your class reading assignment. I don't mean that you should use graphics or clever animation; your classmates may have slow connections. Be kind to them, and keep their download times short. I'll be looking primarily at your assignment's effectiveness in enabling the members of the seminar to learn interesting and challenging material, and I'll pay attention both to presentation and to selection of sources. Your assignment need not be elaborate, but you should work hard to make it thought-provoking. Plan for your classmates to take two to three hours to work through the material you assign (and another two to three hours to work through the material assigned by the student with the other topic for that day).

Papers:

You should turn in your papers in both hard copy and in electronic format.

Your paper should be 20 to 30 pages long, and should reflect analysis and original thought as well as description. Be careful to cite your sources: All footnotes and citations should conform to the current edition of the Bluebook or AWLD. Citations to material available over the Internet should give the URL.

First drafts of all papers must be turned in by Monday, November 3. Final drafts must be turned in on or before Wednesday, November 26. The point of this requirement is to allow you to correct problems with your papers before the final version, so that the paper is better and I can give you a higher grade. If you do a half-hearted job on your first draft, so that I see much of the material in your paper for the first time on November 26, then you won't have a chance to correct those problems, and your grade will suffer. Trust me on this.

Grades:

Your grades will consist of three, equally weighted components:

The reading assignment designed for your topic.

Your research paper on the same topic.

Class participation over the course of the semester.

I'll take the quality of the class discussion on a topic as some indication of the effectiveness of the assignment for that topic. That is, what you have to say with respect to a given assignment will be one of the things I consider in assigning a grade to the student who created that assignment. As a matter of fairness to the other members of the seminar, you need to take sufficient time with each week's assignments to be able to contribute to the discussion.

This document, the list of paper topics, and the syllabus will be available at http://www.law.wayne.edu/weinberg/law-in-cyberspace/

The seminar syllabus is at http://www.law.wayne.edu/weinberg/law-in-cyberspace/2008-cyberspace-syllabus.html.

Send me e-mail at weinberg@wayne.edu