NCJ Number
162455
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Education Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: (Fall 1995) Pages: 213-233
Date Published
1995
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This article describes the development and implementation of a course designed to meet criminal justice students' needs in a new information environment that can be accessed through computers.
Abstract
After discussing the implications of this new information environment for teaching methods and the acquisition of knowledge, the authors describe the resources and organization of their course, which is designed to expose criminal justice students to electronic information sources as well as the more traditional off-line sources in the context of acquiring criminal justice knowledge and information. The class is held in a computer laboratory, and each student is seated in front of a personal computer with direct connection to the university's Vax mainframe computer. The instructor's computer terminal is equipped with an overhead projector and screen. The two instructors who are not lecturing roam through the classroom to assist students with various problems that may arise. The class consists of 14 weekly sessions that address the following topics: criminal justice in the information age, the structure of the information retrieval environment, introduction to the Internet, hunting on Internet, critical thinking and the evaluation of authority, the cycle of research in criminal justice, construction of a database, legal research, information management and hypertext, and the creation of information. The final class period is used for review and student presentations. Information on the course evaluation is also provided. Appended course outline, a sample student project outline, guidelines for bibliographic data, a work form for books and reports, and a work form for periodicals, as well as 22 references