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During the course, youll also learn to define and use legal terms and concepts and identify characteristics of a legal argument. Other legal skills youll develop include reading legal and other study material in an appropriate way; identifying the relevance of information; and interpreting, accessing and using different information sources and evidence. As well as specifically legal skills, this course will also develop your general study skills as you will learn to: take notes efficiently and effectively interpret, access and use different information sources and evidence select, synthesise and integrate material for further use communicate effectively in an appropriate and accurate written form interpret information from data presented in various forms analyse tasks and make plans for tackling them identify and evaluate material with conflicting conclusions frame and address problems and issues
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identify and critically evaluate relevant information. monitor your personal progress, identify your own strengths and weaknesses and implement ways of improving your own learning.
Vocational relevance
The course develops vocationally-orientated skills that are transferable to the job market: good written and communication skills; critical thinking; ability to analyse, synthesise, reflect on and present arguments; and problem solving and evaluating issues.
Entry
This is a key introductory Level 1 course. Level 1 courses provide core subject knowledge and study skills needed for higher education and distance learning. If you are new or a less confident learner, start with Starting with law (Y186). This is an Openings course, also at Level 1 but worth 15 credits. Designed with lots of support and no examination, it will give you a gentle introduction to this subject and to OU study. If you successfully complete this Openings course, you should be ready to study W100. If you are a non-graduate studying towards the OU Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and expect to complete your degree after 2016, you must study Rules, rights and justice: an introduction to law as part of your degree. It will give you the foundation knowledge and study skills to study law at a more advanced level. By the end of the course you will be expected to be working at the level required of first-year undergraduate students. If you are a graduate you do not need to study this course as part of your law degree, although some graduates chose to do so as it gives a solid foundation for their later studies in law. If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please seek advice from our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.
Outside the UK
Please note that this course is only concerned with the law of England and Wales.
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Study materials
What's included
A course introduction, course manuals, course readers, assessment guides and a DVD.
Computing requirements
You will need a computer with internet access to study this course which includes online activities. You can only access these using a web browser with Flash and Java. If you have purchased a new desktop or laptop computer since 2006 you should have no problems completing the online activities. If youve got a netbook, tablet or other mobile computing device check our Technical requirements section. If you use an Apple Mac you will need OS X 10.5 or later. You can also visit the Technical requirements section for further computing information including the details of the support we provide.
Assessment
The assessment details for this course can be found in the facts box above. You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) online through the eTMA system unless there are some difficulties which prevent you from doing so. In these circumstances, you must negotiate with your tutor to get their agreement to submit your assignment on paper. The assignments are an essential part of the course, so you should complete all of them. You will be given more detailed information about the assessment when you begin the course.
Future availability
The details given here are for the course that starts in February 2013. We expect it to be available again in October 2013. We then expect it to be available, once a year, in October.
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This course is expected to start for the last time in October 2019.
Professional recognition
If you are intending to use this course as part of the LLB, and you hope to enter the Legal Professions, you should read carefully our Recognition leaflet 3.13 Law. There are different entry regulations into the legal professions in England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. You should read the Recognition leaflet as it is your responsibility to ensure that you meet these requirements.
Technical requirements
For this course you will need a computer with at least the following specification:
3.0GHz Pentium 4 or 2.0GHz dual core or similar 512MB (more required with Windows Vista or 7) Windows XP/Vista/7 or Mac OS X 10.5 or a recent Linux distribution No
We suggest that you check this technical specification against your existing computer or take it into consideration if you are planning to purchase a new one.This specification is based on the most common type of home computer: the Windows PC. If you are using another other type of computer, please read the relevant sections accessible from the On this page links above.
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Laptop and portable computers may have slower processor speeds; we would recommend that you use one of more than 1.6GHz. Even then, performance may be sluggish, especially for advanced level modules in computer science and technology. Equivalent AMD or other brand processors are satisfactory.
Memory (RAM)
This is the memory your computer uses to run programs. The more memory you have, the more programs can run simultaneously. Minimum memory requirement is dependent on the operating system of your computer. The minimum of 512MB is only suitable for computers with Windows XP and, where applicable, basic Linux distributions. You also need to check with your supplier and/or the Microsoft or Apple websites for the minimum memory requirements of Windows Vista, 7 or Apple OS X variants.
Screen size
The screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels is readily achieved by a standard LCD screen of 15 (38cm) or more, with either a desktop or laptop computer. (This is the distance across the diagonal of screen.) This screen resolution may also be met by screens of a smaller physical size, but this will depend on whether they are the older standard 4:3 ratio (width:height) or the more modern widescreen. Netbooks with a widescreen size of 12 inches or less may have a height of less than 768 pixels often only 600 or 640. Some applications will not be usable on these narrow screens and others will require a lot of scrolling up and down to navigate readily. Some smaller laptops will also have this problem. The minimum colour range for Open University software will be achieved by even the smallest of screen sizes.
Printer
A few modules require a good quality photo printer (see individual module descriptions for details).
Operating system
This is the software that runs in the background on a computer. Examples include Microsoft Windows, Linux and Apple Macintosh OS X. The current versions that we support and for which our software is tested include: Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 OS X 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7 (Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion). Further information is available about Apple Mac and Linux.
Internet access
You will need an account with an internet service provider (ISP) to get a connection to the internet. Access via only a public library or company computer may prevent you accessing websites and installing software. We recommend that you have broadband access to the internet. To access basic module activities a 512kbps service is adequate but if you use the audio conferencing feature or watch video clips, 1 Mbps is the minimum recommended. If you use dial-up (56kbps) to access some of the basic online teaching activities, it will mostly work, but you will need to be patient. There are a growing number of online activities, for example, downloading study materials, that you will find very timeconsuming. If possible, we recommend that you upgrade to a broadband service. However we are aware that this is not possible in some parts of the country.
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Web browser
A web browser is the software program that enables you to access web pages on the internet. For some module activities you need to add two add-ons to your browser: Flash (from Adobe Corp) and Java (from Java.com) to extend its functionality. These are free to download and install if you dont already have them. You may also need Adobe Reader to view study materials provided in PDF format; this is also free to download and install. Our websites and browser-based software delivered on disk for student use, whether academic or administrative, are tested to be compatible with the current and the previous versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari at the time that the software was first released. Some browsers on mobile devices, notably Safari on the Apple iPad, have limited functionality that restricts some features of the Universitys websites. Some Open University modules use some of the educational tools in the Google environment. These are designed to work best with the Chrome browser. If you want to keep your preferred browser, as well as Chrome, it is quite possible to have two browsers installed on your computer and use them for different purposes.
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Apple Mac
Over 450 modules can be studied online using almost any computer, including a Mac. However, for modules designated for Windows only, if you decide to use a system other than a Windows-based PC, you may have problems accessing the software and data files supplied with study materials. The technical help for Mac users available from the OU Computing Helpdesk will be limited, so you should make sure that you have some other form of support in case you run into difficulties. Online content is currently tested with Safari. Mac users can therefore access online materials. The minimum acceptable version of the Mac operating system is OS X v10.5. Most new DVDs for OU study work in a browser, so they can be accessed from Macs as well as from PCs. Unfortunately older, non-browser-based products arent directly Mac-accessible. About 150 modules use software (mostly on CD or DVD) that runs in Windows. Recent Intel processor Macs can use the Apple Boot Camp dual booting software that allows you to install Windows in native mode on your Mac. There is also other software to run Windows on a Mac. You will need to talk to your computer supplier for support on using these systems. If you have an older, slower Mac with a limited amount of memory, performance may be an issue and you should take appropriate technical advice before installing one of these products. A limited number of modules may require students to use platform specific specialist software (usually for Windows or Linux). This will be indicated in the module description. The electronic tutor-marked assignment (eTMA) system accepts word-processed documents in Microsoft Word format (.doc, not .docx) or the platform-independent rich text format (.rtf). Students can submit assignments prepared using a Mac, running their preferred word processor and a standard web browser, as long as they use one of these formats. There is a Mac self-help group organised by OU students.
Linux
Because there are many distributions of Linux designed for different hardware platforms and users requirements, we cannot be prescriptive about which distribution and/or platform you should use. Normally, we would expect the majority of Linux users to have Firefox as their web browser. The Open University software that is browser-based is tested on Firefox. Depending on your Linux distribution you may have to install additional applications into the browser, such as Flash, Shockwave or Java. Depending on the other study requirements, for example for the electronic tutor-marked assignment (eTMA) system, you may need to provide and install other software, such as a word processor which is compatible with Microsoft Office formats (.doc and .rtf, currently not .docx), into your Linux computer. If you need to set up your Linux system to dual boot with Windows, you can use the Virtual Box software. Please note that the OU Computing Helpdesk support for Linux users is very limited.
Computing helpdesk
Our experts can help you to get the most from our computing resources, and offer technical support for access to OU software and online materials.
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If you want to discuss your computer specifications for your module, phone or email our helpdesk: Phone +44 (0)1908 653972 (08.00 to 21.30) Email OU-computing-helpdesk@open.ac.uk FAQs site
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