Innovation by Legal Design Thinking — Student Digitalization Lab

• Type of event: Seminars
• Institutions:
  Faculty of Law, Writing Centre, Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences
• Funding period: 01.04.2022 to 31.03.2023
• Short title: StudDigiLab

Extract from the funding application: "In the debate about so-called "future skills" and innovative teaching formats, the list of demands is long, but concrete ideas for the realisation of didactic interventions are scarce. Lawyers and computer scientists in particular have key roles to play in the development of future digital products. This is where the intervention comes in and raises awareness of future social challenges and necessities, especially in the context of data value creation and product development."

The StudDigiLab project

The teaching concept was designed to examine the extent to which university teaching can function in cooperation with private sector partners and how student learning processes can be promoted and marketable product qualities can be achieved in a design-based learning scenario.

he StudDigiLab was aimed at law and computer science students who were to digitise and optimise real, internal processes of the cooperation partner Die Caritas (Lower Saxony) in the seminar. Confronted with the open-ended design task, the concept of legal design thinking was introduced and iterated as a basis for the development of innovative solutions.

Review and results

Law and computer science students worked in mixed groups and introduced each other to the disciplinary perspectives in peer learning scenarios. The respective expertise of the study groups was seen as complementary and necessary for solving the task at hand. The law students focused on the digitalisation of law-related sub-processes so that the law can be applied automatically through digital data processing. To do this, it was necessary to convert legal texts into digital algorithmic decision trees, which are created with the help of a legal technology (no-code tool). In further steps, these decision trees needed to be embedded in an overall process prototype, which in turn was the main task of the computer science students. The aim was to design a functioning product (minimum viable product), which was implemented by the co-operation partner.

The students were enabled to develop digital solutions for complex problems in an interdisciplinary environment, with increasing independence from the lecturers, and to organise themselves using suitable methods and tools. To this end, students have learnt about different types of data and data structures and applied their knowledge in practice. They are familiar with the abstract process of data value creation and different value creation models as well as the generation of knowledge from data. Through repeated reflection, students have exchanged and adopted different perspectives on data. They have put their newly acquired knowledge into practice in the development and design of a digital consulting process. The students are thus sensitised to the importance of digital data in different application contexts. They have gained important experience through the collaborative and co-creative orientation of the seminar and have learnt about the advantages of integrative and participative development processes.

The product developed (prototype) in the seminars has reached a quality that is marketable - this is probably particularly true for the welfare sector, as digitalisation is progressing particularly slowly here. One of the project partners has implemented the prototype developed after the first run in live operation. The format as a design-based learning scenario will also be incorporated into future events, adapted to the respective context. This mainly concerns the rough structure of the events and the abstract content to be addressed in order to have developed a functioning product at the end. At the concrete level, it is necessary to look at the extent to which content and materials cover the specific needs of the respective design case or whether adjustments/changes are necessary.

Tips from lecturers for lecturers

Transfer projects that work with real cases from the private sector are possible, attractive and promote intended "future skills". It is possible to develop data-related skills based on a specific design task. The students' reflections have shown that the knowledge acquired has been transferred to other contexts. Atmospheric aspects such as the trusting and constructive atmosphere in the course were repeatedly cited as key to productivity. Communication in the project is complex due to the actors involved. Communication management is primarily the responsibility of the teachers and it requires a certain amount of organisational skill to manage this. The effort is worth it because the students are particularly motivated due to the authenticity of the work and an actual contribution to improving the work of people involved in the process can be achieved.

Persons involved

Marten Borchers

Research assistant in the Business Informatics, Socio-Technical System Design working group

Main research areas:

• Smart city, smart mobility, participation and artificial intelligence

Activities:

• Design of human-computer/AI interactions, prototyping and development of intelligent systems and machine learning models

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Lukas Musumeci, Lic. Iur.

Research assistant at the Hamburg Centre for University Teaching and Learning

Specialisations:

• Writing, law and university didactics

Activities:

• Conception, development and testing of formative reflection and metacognition in real environments

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Anton Sefkow

Research assistant at the Centre for Law in the Digital Transformation and Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies

Specialisations:

• Legal and university didactics

Activities:

• Conception, development, testing and transfer of innovative inter- and transdisciplinary teaching formats

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