With roots going back to 1878 as one of the UK’s first teacher training colleges in North London, Middlesex University now offers a wide variety of courses to students across campuses in London, Dubai, and Mauritius. Its School of Law incorporates a Legal Advice Centre where students are able to gain hands-on experience of legal work. Students, faculty members and librarians within the law school have access to Lexis+ Legal Research.
We spoke to Alan Wheeler, Liaison Librarian, Library Services and Lego Serious Play Practitioner, who has worked in the higher education sector for 20 years and has been at Middlesex University London for seven years. His role involves supporting university staff and students - primarily in the law faculty but also in other departments - with their research and reading strategies, helping them to get the most out of the available resources.
From Lego to Lexis
Alan employs a variety of strategies to help students learn, perhaps the most distinctive being the use of Lego to encourage playful and creative approaches to learning: “As well as teaching students about more traditional library techniques, I'm also a Lego serious play practitioner. One of the things I do with the law students is get them to build their ideas using Lego.”
He has even presented his ideas on how the Danish toy can be used in law libraries to the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians.
Alongside his more innovative techniques, Alan also trains his students how to harness the traditional legal research tools such as Lexis+ Legal Research. He tries to impress upon them the value of having access to LexisNexis whilst at university:
“I get the whole room to shout out how much the course fees are going to cost them each year - to make them consider the importance of getting their money’s worth. Because, for example, their university Lexis+ access disappears when they graduate. So I use those things as conversation starters, to try and encourage them to use the stuff that they're paying for by being at university.”
Legitimacy and authority of content
One of the key advantages of having access to LexisNexis is the trustworthiness of the content. One of the research skills which Alan teaches his students is the need to assess the legitimacy and authority of sources. Whilst they can rely on the accuracy and quality of Lexis+ content, he tells them to always question the authority of research tools, asking: “Is it reliable? How do I know it's reliable?”
Better interface and search
The user interface of Lexis+ Legal Research has been updated and looks quite different to its predecessor LexisLibrary.
Although changes to the look and feel of software products can often be disorientating for existing users, Alan has had the opposite experience with Lexis+. He believes that LexisNexis has “simplified the interface considerably, and brought in new ways of finding things within a couple of clicks”, noting that “this is a really good example of how the interface has been improved across the board”. On a visual note, his students are particularly happy with the ability to change the colour scheme.
LexisNexis has “simplified the interface considerably, and brought in new ways of finding things within a couple of clicks.”
Overall, LexisNexis has long been a key component of the research toolkit at Middlesex University. Its content reliability has made it a firm favourite among students and staff alike. Now, with Lexis+ Legal Research, the improved functionality allows students to go above and beyond to improve their work - beyond obvious case law and digging deeper, with help from excellent practice area layouts.
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