Improving linear computer assisted learning

This paper draws upon research done at the Centre for Law and Computing at the University of Durham into different types of Computer Assisted Learning ('CAL') programs in law. The research concentrates on linear CAL programs and the features which authors may wish to incorporate into their programs in order to increase their effectiveness. It examines four linear CAL programs which were written with the specific goal of developing an understanding of basic legal principles. The findings of the research highlight the limitations of linear CAL, whilst making several specific suggestions how such programs should be implemented and enhanced.     

The FBI,A Hundred‐Year Retrospective

No civilian government agency in the United States has received as much attention from authors as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Much of the early writing consisted of laudatory pieces that parroted the output of the agency’s extensive public relations apparatus. This was followed by a reactive era of critical literature following the Watergate scandal and the death of J. Edgar Hoover. This article surveys the key literature on this controversial agency, including both perspectives and insider memoirs, Hoover biographies, and recent scholarly works.     

Collective Memory from a Psychological Perspective

The study of collective memory has burgeoned in the last 20 years, so much so that one can even detect a growing resistance to what some view as the imperialistic march of memory studies across the social sciences (e.g., Berliner 2005; Fabian 1999). Yet despite its clear advance, one area that has remained on the sidelines is psychology. On the one hand, this disinterest is surprising, since memory is of central concern to psychologists. On the other hand, the relative absence of the study of collective memory within the discipline of psychology seems to suit both psychology and other disciplines of the social sciences, for reasons that will be made clear. This paper explores how psychology might step from the sidelines and contribute meaningfully to discussions of collective memory. It reviews aspects of the small literature on the psychology of collective memory and connects this work to the larger scholarly community’s interest in collective memory. The first three authors contributed equally to this paper. The order in which they are listed reflects the throw of a die.     

Commentary: In Response to the Paper by Ellen Hey,The Climate Change Regime Sustainable Development and International Administrative Law in the Making (see pp. 75–100)

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics -     

Estimating Treatment Effects and Predicting Recidivism for Community Supervision Using Survival Analysis with Instrumental Variables

Criminal justice researchers often seek to predict criminal recidivism and to estimate treatment effects for community corrections programs. Although random assignment provides a desirable avenue to estimating treatment effects, often estimation must be based on observational data from operating corrections programs. Using observational data raises the risk of selection bias. In the community corrections contexts, researchers can sometimes use judges as instrumental variables. However, the use of instrumental variable estimation is complicated for nonlinear models, and when studying criminal recidivism, researchers often choose to use survival models, which are nonlinear given right-hand-censoring or competing events. This paper discusses a procedure for estimating survival models with judges as instruments. It discusses strengths and weaknesses of this approach and demonstrates some of the estimation properties with a computer simulation. Although this paper’s focus is narrow, its implications are broad. A conclusion argues that instrumental variable estimation is valuable for a broad range of topics both within and outside of criminal justice.