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Skills for Law Students is an innovative online resource which covers all of the skills that law students need to understand and develop during the course of their law degree. It includes clear, practical advice on how to develop key skills as well as over 170 interactive activities to test progress and to help put the theory into practice. |
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Frequently Asked Questions I. General content questions What is Skills for Law Students? Skills for Law Students covers all of the study skills and legal skills a student needs to develop during the course of his or her law degree. There are 32 chapters and each chapter deals with a separate skill. Each chapter contains two key elements: The first is the 'text': an overview of what that skill is; why it is important; and what you need to do to develop it. The second are the 'activities': interactive tests which enable you to understand the topic better; to put the skills into practice; and to self-study and receive immediate feedback on your progress. What is the relationship between the book and the website? Skills for Law Students is an online resource with an accompanying textbook. This means that all of the content is available online. If you prefer, you can simply use the book to activate your online account and you can access 100% of the content online. The book contains all of the 'text' for each skill area, but does not contain the activities. If you prefer not to read large chunks of text on screen, or you find the book more convenient, you may choose to read the text in the book and then log on to the website to complete the activities. We flag up in the book when there is a relevant activity with a number of screenshots, so that you know where the activities occur and what they are. How do I submit a comment or correction? You may use the Contact us form to submit your comments. When providing a comment about a specific entry, please provide as much detail as possible and include the URL of the page being referred to by copying and pasting the URL from your browser's address box into your message. Comments will be reviewed by our editorial staff. For more information on this product, see About this site. II. Questions regarding the activities
Can I re-take an activity I have already completed? Yes. Simply on the 'Clear' button and the activity will be reset, ready for you to take again. Your 'My Scores' page will then be updated with your new result. Why do some activities not have scores? Some activities are reflective activities where there is no right or wrong answer. In these cases, you are asked to record your thoughts in a box provided and when you click on the 'Authors' thoughts' button you can see whether your thoughts are on the same lines as the authors. It is important to realise that sometimes there is not a 'right' or 'wrong' way of doing something; rather, through reflection, practise, and experience you may come to develop your own way of approaching something and this is an important way of developing your skills. Can I see a summary of my results? Yes. You can click on the 'My Scores' link at any point to see your results. How can I share my results with my lecturer? You can either print out the relevant screen to show your lecturer or you can email her/him with your scores. In order to do this, simply go to the 'My Scores' page and click on 'Email to Lecturer' button and fill in the form provided. Your results will be attached to the email automatically. Alternatively you can click on the 'Export' feature. This will then create an .xls file which you can email to your lecturer from your own mailbox. Will my answers be lost if my computer crashes or if I log off halfway through an activity? It depends. If you have clicked on 'Save' or 'Submit' during an activity then your answers will be saved and you will be able to see them the next time you login. If you haven't clicked on 'Save' or 'Submit' then your work will be lost. Do I have to complete the activities in order? No. You can complete the activities in any order. Simply use the left-hand navigation bar to move from one topic to another and dip in and out of the text and activities as you wish! Can I print my answers? Yes. If you want to keep a record of your answers or to print out important information for your file, click the 'Print' button at the foot of the page. III. Questions regarding access to the site How do I access the website? You access the website via a unique code which is contained in an access token at the back of the book. You cannot access the website without buying the book. You can buy the book here. When you have a copy of the book and the access token, go to the Token Activation Page to create your account. Once you have created it you can login to the website. Do I need to remember my access code? You only need your access code once: the first time you login you will be required to submit your access code. After that you will just need your username and password. Once I have redeemed my access code, how long does my subscription last for? Once you have entered your access code and created an account, you will have access to this site for four years or until 1 August 2014, whichever is earlier. After four years, your account will expire and you will not be able to enter the site. Can I pass my access code to another user? No. Your access code will work only once to create your account. After that, it will not work and cannot be used to create further accounts. How do I change my username? You can change your username by contacting our Customer Services department, using the Contact us form. How do I change my password? You can change your password by clicking on the 'My Account' link which appears on every page. Your new password has to contain at least four characters (only digits and letters). I've forgotten my password. How do I login? Click on the Forgotten your password? link on the homepage. You will be prompted to enter your email address and your password will be resent to your email account. Can I access the site via Athens? No. This site is not accessible through Athens as it does not rely on an institutional subscription. Can an institution buy a multi-user subscription? If an institution wishes to provide access to all students, it must buy the relevant number of books in order to provide each student with a unique access code. Is it possible to have a free trial? Yes. There are two topics available to all on the public homepage. Do I always have to access my account from the same computer or on a computer within the university network? No. You can access the site using your username and password from any computer in any location. I registered and now can't access my account. Why not? Check that you are typing your email and password correctly. Remember they are case sensitive. Make sure there are no spaces before the letters you key in. Try clearing your website cache. It may be that your subscription period of four years has now expired. The only other reason your account would be disabled would be due to abuse detection. If none of these applies, then use the Contact us form. IV. Technical questions What are the technical requirements for using this website? In order to access the website, you need a standard web browser such as Internet Explorer 6.0, Mozilla Firefox 3.0, Safari 3.0 with an internet connection, HTML and JavaScript support as well as Flash Player 9 or above plug-in. The website performs a software check to find out whether your web browsers support JavaScript and Flash Player. Your operating system should be one of the following: Win 2000 SP3; Win XP SP2; Win Vista; MAC OS X 10.X. You will also need MS Office and Adobe Reader installed on your computer to be able to open Word documents, Power Point presentations and PDFs files attached to the exercises. The website is best viewed with a screen resolution of 1024x768, although it will also work at higher and lower resolutions. If you are having problems accessing the website, here are some general questions to ask yourself Are you connected to the internet when you try to do use the site? Try going to another website. If you can't, your internet service may be experiencing problems. Are you typing your email and password correctly? Are you using a recommended browser: Internet Explorer 6 or later, or Firefox 3? If not, try going to the website using one of the recommended browsers. Have you cleared your cache recently? Your browser cache is a temporary storage area that holds web pages that you have looked at. Getting information from the cache is usually quicker than getting it from the internet. Such decisions are made in the background and you usually do not need to be involved. However, this can mean that you do not get the most recent version of a web page. If you are finding that the website if behaving strangely, you might find that the problem is fixed by clearing (or emptying) your cache. To clear your cache under Firefox: 1. Log out of Skills for Law Students and close all other open browser windows. 2. On the Tools menu select Options. 3. Click the Privacy icon and then the Clear Now button. 4. Click the Clear Private Data Now button. 5. Click OK. To clear your cache under Internet Explorer 6: 1. Log out of Skills for Law Students and close all other open browser windows. 2. On the Tools menu select Internet Options. 3. Under the Temporary Internet Files heading, click the Delete Files button. 4. Click OK on the Warning box. 5. Click OK again. To clear your cache under Internet Explorer 7: 1. Log out of Skills for Law Students and close all other open browser windows. 2. On the Tools menu select Delete Browsing History. 3. Click the Delete Files button. Are you using a firewall? If you do use a firewall, add oxfordinteract.com/lawskills to your trusted sites, also known as your whitelist. If that does not work, deactivate the firewall and then try accessing oxfordinteract.com/lawskills again. If deactivating the firewall does work, remember to activate it again when you have finished using the website. Are you behind a proxy server? If you are, it may be blocking your access to oxfordinteract.com/lawskills. Contact your system administrator and ask them to allow you access to the website. What accessibility standards does the site meet? The following requirements have been implemented within the website to ensure compliance with Priority Levels 1 and 2 of the W3C accessibility guidelines:
Assets have been tagged for assistive technology Colour does not convey any critical meaning Content and structure are separated from presentation Foreground has been differentiated from background for both audio and visual presentation A logical reading order has been set Content does not use any flashing text or graphics, or looped animations Text has been formatted correctly (avoiding full justification) Buttons are of sufficient size Do I need JavaScript? Yes. If you need to enable JavaScript, please bear in mind that the way to do this will be different for each browser. For Internet Explorer 6 please follow the instructions below: You can tell IE6 to enable pop-ups and JavaScript only for trusted websites. You first need to specify that www.oxfordinteract.com/lawskills is a trusted site, and then enable pop-ups and JavaScript. 1. On the Tools menu select Internet Options. 2. Click the Security tab on the Internet Options dialog box. 3. Click the Trusted sites icon. 4. Click the Sites button. 5. Under Add this web site to the zone: type www.oxfordinteract.com/lawskills (you might want to copy and paste the URL to prevent typos). 6. Click the Add button. 7. Make sure that the check box next to Require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone is not checked. 8. Click OK. Now enable JavaScript: 9. Click the Custom Level button. 10. Scroll down to the options under Use Pop-up Blocker. (It is quite a long way down). 11. Click the Enable radio button. 12. Then scroll down to the options under Scripting. 13. Under Active scripting click the Enable radio button. Do I need Flash Player? Yes. You need Flash Player 9 or above as a plug-in in a web browser in order to do the activities and watch the videos. If you do not have Flash Player installed, please download it from the Adobe website. Can my additional Flash related plug-ins affect the way the exercises work? Yes. That is why we recommend that you switch off your additional Flash-related plug-ins in your web browser if you experience any problems with using the website. What are cookies and why do I need them? Cookies are small files that we create to store information on your computer. We do not use cookies to track what other sites you have visited. We do not look at or track any personal or confidential information about you. We do make use of cookies to enable authorization control for online subscriptions. We delete all our cookies when you click 'Log Out' or quit your browser. Please note: you must have cookies enabled to access Skills for Law Students. How do I enable cookies? To enable cookies, follow the instructions below for the browser version you are using. Mozilla Firefox (1.0 final release and earlier) Go to the "Tools" menu. Select "Options". Select the "Privacy" icon in the left panel. Check the box corresponding to "Allow sites to set cookies". Click "OK" to save changes. Netscape 7.1/Mozilla 5.0 Select "Preferences" from the Edit menu. Click on the arrow next to "Privacy & Security" in the scrolling window to expand. Under "Privacy & Security", select "Cookies." Select "Enable all cookies". Click "OK". Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+ Select "Internet Options" from the Tools menu. Click on the "Privacy" tab. Click the "Default" button (or manually slide the bar down to "Medium") under "Settings". Click "OK". I have to scroll to see all of the actvity. How do I see more of it? Check whether you have maximized the browser window. In other words, does it fill your screen? If not, click the maximize button in the top right of the window. Check whether your display is at the recommended resolution for this website. The recommended resolution is 1024 x 768 pixels. If you have a lower resolution, you may need to scroll horizontally to see the whole activity. Can I change the size of the web browser window? Yes. You can do this by maximising or amending the size of the window. You also need to reload the page once you change the size of the web browser so that the activity can adjust to the new dimensions. If you are in the middle of doing an activity remember to click 'Save' before you reload the page. Can I change the size of the font? Yes, you can resize the text to a comfortable reading by clicking AAA symbols displayed on the right hand side of the website, depending on which font size is most suitable for you. Is there a search function? No, but you can find your way around the site by using the left-hand navigation to browse through the various topics. You can also use the site map. V. Watching the video files Some activities contain video files. They are downloaded progressively. If your internet connection is slow or overloaded we recommend that you wait until the file is fully downloaded before you play it. Do I need a plug in to watch the video files? Yes. You need to have Adobe Flash Player 9 or above in order to watch the video files. If you do not already have this, the go to www.adobe.com and look for the button that says Get Adobe Flash Player. Click on the button to download the programme and follow the instructions to install it. Why does it take so long to download the video clips? If you are using a dial-up or slow broadband connection, it may take longer to download video files. You can only improve it by improving your connection. We recommend having broadband connection. Why can't I hear any sound on the video clips? First check that the volume isn't muted in your operating system. If you have separate audio speakers, check that they are switched on. |
