Universitat Internacional de Catalunya
Juridical Infotechnology and Communication Skills
Other languages of instruction: Catalan
Teaching staff
PART A: Juridical Infotech
Questions and doubts can be solved in the spaces established for it during the face-to-face meetings or by sending an email to the teacher.
The student has also the possibility of arranging a face-to-face meeting with the teacher to receive specific support.
PART B: Communication Skills
Student will arrange face-to-face meetings with the teacher by sending an email to the following address:
rmjimenez@uic.es
Introduction
The subject is divided into two different and independent parts.
One part is dedicated to Legal info-technology (part A) and the other is communication techniques (part B).
Each part is to be done simultaneously having their own methodologies, areas, timetables, etc.
For questions related to the evaluation of each part and the subject as a whole, please consult the section of this document that addresses grading.
PART A: Legal Info-technology
The subject is centered on the skills, techniques and instruments from the ICT world for the efficient production of fomal documents in the legal realm, documents based on spreadsheets (especially budgets) and also the preparation of presentations using slides.
Special emphasis is placed on good practicies and the use of efficient production methods that ICTs provide us as well as the criteria for formal quality and visual harmony of the documents that can be found in organisations in the legal world.
Part B: Communication Techniques
This subject is intended to provide students with the tools and knowledge on oral and written communication that university learning requires and encourages an advanced level of language mastery, the objective of any good lawyer.
Pre-course requirements
None
Objectives
PART A: Legal Info-technology
-- Acquire skills for the elaboration of formal documents in the legal realm.
-- Acquire skills for using spreadsheets, in particular, creating budgets.
-- Acquire skills for the elaboration of presentations using slides and the different uses of high technology.
-- Familiarise oneself with the criteria and good practices involved in the creation of formal documents from an organisation, the use of templates and the concept of a style guide.
PART B: Communicaton Techniques
Objective of knowledge:
-- Know the rules of grammar and syntax in one's own language and be able to identify the mistakes most commonly made.
-- Define and identify the techniques and strategies for presentations and for argumentation.
-- Know the main resources available for oral expression.
Objectives for attitudes and abilities:
-- Text analysis in order to be able to discern the ideas presented and be able to analyse them critically.
-- Be able to write with clarity, rigor and accuracy.
-- Develop the habit of reading.
-- Constantly developing work, being professional and responsible and being mindful of meeting deadlines.
-- Oral expression of ideas clearly and in front of others.
Competences/Learning outcomes of the degree programme
- 01 - To acquire the ability to understand main ideas and participate in conferences or professor led lectures in their academic context.
- 02 - To acquire the ability to understand, analyse and synthesise
- 03 - To be able to express one's ideas and arguments in an orderly and coherent way both in oral and written form (written and oral techniques)
- 04 - To turn in documents that have been formally and thoroughly prepared to high standards
- 10 - To acquire the ability to skillfully use computer systems and ICTs.
- 11 - To acquire skills for autonomous learning
Learning outcomes of the subject
PART A: Legal Info-technology
Once the student has successfully completed this part of the subject, , he or she will present the following learning outcomes:
1. Have developed habits for neatness and a formal quality when presenting documents.
2. Have acquired good skills of use of the most common IT tools.
3. Know how to put together formal documents for the legal world.
4. Know how to come up with budgets using spreadsheets. He or she will be able to create presentations using advanced technology.
IMPORTANT REMARK: the knowledge and procedures learned in this course will be required in the "Infotecnología Jurídica 2" course, especially those directed to produce formal legal documents through optimal procedures.
PART B: Communication Techniques
1. Acquired the ability for oral and written communication.
2. Developed skills for expressing oneself in public.
3. Developed the ability to synthesise and analyse information received in class and from complementary material provided by the professor.
4. Have acquired analytical skills and be able to arrive at valid conclusions.
5. Have developed skills for neatness and formality when presenting documents.
6. Been able to overcome the intitial difficulties of speaking in public.
7. Have acquired the skills for autonomous learning.
Syllabus
PART A: Juridical Infotech
Lesson 0. Basic concepts and functions (including basic information management), and conceptual approach of the work with words processor. This lesson put the foundation of the next work with word processor and ensures that the student has the minimum required knowledge and skills. Additionally, it gives useful complementary information about information management and provides tools and guides for autonomous improvement of typing skills.
Lesson 1. Word processing: conceptual approach, productivity tools, use of styles, templates and style guides, automatic table of contents creation, sections management, headers and footers formatting, watermarks, footnotes, fields, quick formatting of texts without format, PDF generation, track changes tool, spell check, and multi-language documents.
Lesson 2. Spreadsheets: introduction, cells and sheets formatting, variables, functions and references, data sort and formatting, data validation, series generation, charts generation, conditional formatting utility, filters and schemes. Referential functions and budget calculation. Use of mail merge utility to generate particular documents from models.
Lesson 3. Slideshows: slideshows creation with text, inclusion of objects and charts, master slide management, animations, background music and sounds, rehearsal tool, format management (ppt, pps).
PART B: Communication Skills
1. Introduction
Think, read, write.
The horizon of intellectual life: love of wisdom and seek after truth (class notes). The four most important values at UIC.
2. Language
Levels of language, degrees of knowledge and assessment (Jiménez-Mantecón, 2012). Varieties and language registers. Legal and administrative language (class notes). Report on modernization of legal language (PDF document, pages 5-12)
4. Rhetoric
Pragmatic logos (class notes). Rhetoric: definition. End of rhetoric (class notes). Rhetoric communication. Areas of application (Spang, 2006)
Aristotle’s Rhetoric (book I, chapters I-III): logos, pathos, ethos (book excerpts).
Persuasion. Strategies to persuade. Rhetoric as a system of communications elaboration. Areas and genres of rhetoric communication. Quality criteria of rhetoric communication. Discourse construction. Styles (Spang, 2006)
5. Written expression
Methods to generate and organise the ideas (Jiménez, 2016)
Simple and clear language (Jiménez, 2016)
Accurate language (Jiménez, 2016)
The argumentation (Jiménez, 2016)
Correct language (Jiménez, 2016)
Most common lexical, morphological and syntactic mistakes (Casado, 2012)
Text review (Jiménez, 2016)
6. Academic writing
Academic writing. Structural and linguistic characteristics of academic texts. Academic genres. Source citation.
7. Verbal expression
Vocalisation and intonation. Expressive reading. The debate. Preparation of short speeches. Recording a speech.
Teaching and learning activities
In person
PART A: Juridical Infotech
The learning methodology combines face-to-face meetings with individual exercises.
Summarizing, the methodology consists of the following activity cycle:
1. Face-to-face meetings to set the conceptual approach, introduce and situate the student.
2. Autonomous work of the student about the basic techniques and functions, through exercises.
3. Face-to-face meetings to explain and practice the advanced and complex functions.
4. Practical exercises to develop skills of autonomous learning by the student.
5. Practical complex exercises which allow the student to integrate the plurality of functions in a unified praxis. These cases will be solved iteratively, and each student will submit at least two versions of each exercise, after a revision of the first submission in class.
6. Exams based on complex case oriented to the integrated praxis.
In the virtual space for the course the student the plan for the course will be released, week by week. All the activities can be found in the virtual space for the course, with a clear indication of deadlines.
REMARK: IT IS STRONGLY FORBIDDEN TO USE ANY ELECTRONIC DEVICE DURING THE TESTS AND EXAMS OF THIS PART, APART FROM THE COMPUTER ASSIGNED TO THE STUDENT BY THE TEACHER. THIS APPLIES SPECIALLY TO MOBILE PHONES, TABLETS, AND WATCHES, BUT MORE GENERALLY APPLIES TO ALL DEVICES.
PART B: Communication Skills
The methodology consists of the following activities:
1. Lectures to set the conceptual approach, introduce and situate the student.
2. Autonomous work of the student on the basic techniques and functions, taking simple exercises.
3. Practical exercises to develop skills of autonomous learning by the student.
4. Practical complex exercises which allow the student to integrate the plurality of functions in a unified praxis. These cases will be solved iteratively, and each student will submit at least two versions of each exercise, after a revision of the first submission in class.
5. Exams based on complex case oriented to the integrated praxis.
6. Discussion.
REMARK: IT IS STRONGLY FORBIDDEN TO USE ANY ELECTRONIC DEVICE DURING THE TESTS AND EXAMS OF THIS PART. THIS RULE APPLIES SPECIALLY TO MOBILE PHONES, TABLETS, AND SMARTWATCHES, BUT MORE GENERALLY APPLIES TO ALL DEVICES.
| TRAINING ACTIVITY | COMPETENCES |
| Classroom activities in order to follow up on students (both individual and in a group) Student independent study Individual projects Individual and group projects Presenting concepts and their practical application in the classroom | 02 03 04 09 12 13 |
| Classroom activities in order to follow up on students (both individual and in a group) Individual projects Student can study and work independently Individual and group projects Study and work in a group Presenting concepts and their practical application in the classroom | 02 03 04 05 09 11 12 13 |
| Classroom activities in order to follow up on students (both individual and in a group) Student independent study Individual projects Individual and group projects Study and work in a group Presenting concepts and their practical application in the classroom | 02 03 04 05 09 11 12 13 |
Evaluation systems and criteria
In person
Rules for both parts
In order to pass the course is essential to pass each part (A & B) separately. Therefore, the final mark will be calculated only if the mark of each part (A & B) is higher or equal to 5 (out of 10).
In that case, the final mark will be calculated according to this formula:
50% Juridical infotech mark + 50% Communication skills mark.
Therefore, truancy of Continuing Education Conferences will have a direct negative impact on the overall mark for the subject. The quantity if this negative impact depends on the number of conferences that have not been attended, adding up to a point (out of 10) on the final grade. For example: if you miss a conference the impact will be 0.4 points, if you miss two conferences the impact will be 0.7 points and if you miss the three conferences the impact will be 1 point. This regulation will not apply to Erasmus or exchange students, neither to students of the double degrees.
Since truancy of continuing education conferences penalizes, it is numerically possible for a student to pass both parts of the subject and fail the course due to the aforementioned penalty.
In case of failing one or more parts, the mark will be the average of the two if it is less than 4 (out of 10) or 4 if it is more than 4 (out of 10).
In the repeat exams (and followings) the final mark will be calculated according to the following formula: 50% Juridical infotech mark, 50% Communication skills mark. Therefore, continuing education conferences will not have any repercussion on the mark in this case.
The student will have to attend the repeat exam only of the part or parts he has failed in the first call.
The final exam will take place in different days or schedules for the two parts (A &B), in both the first and the repeat exam.
Following there is a detailed description of the evaluation system for each part.
If the student fails to attend the final examination of one of the parts of this course, the mark will be "no show", independently of whether it has approved or failed the other part.
Exam reviews will be done at the scheduled time and day. Nothing will be reviewed outside of this period.
PART A: Juridical Infotech
There is only one requirement to be admitted to the final exam: to have submitted all the 5 scored exercises.
The final mark will be calculated according to the following formula:
1. Scored exercises: 40% (8% each)
2. Assessment of student’s progression: 10%
3. Final exam: 50%
4. Penalties: for deadline failure, truancy and cheating/copying. These penalties directly subtract a quantity from the final mark. The list of possible penalties with their rules of application is the following:
A. Late submissions of scored exercises: penalties will apply on the definitive submission. If the delay is less than 24 hours, -5 points out of 100, and -40 points out of 100 if greater than 24 hours. This penalty will be applied to the score of each exercise submitted out of time. Therefore it is possible to earn a penalty of up to -16 points out of 100 on the final mark due to this cause. Submissions of scored exercises will be accepted until a specific overall deadline indicated by the teacher in the virtual space of the course. Beyond that deadline, no exercise will be accepted.
B. Late submission of previous year exam resolution: a delay of two or more days (or simply the absence of submission) will imply a penalty of -5 points out of 100 on the final mark.
C. Truancy: there is a margin of 3 absences, but from the fourth, a penalty of -1 point out of 100 on the final mark for each absence will apply. Therefore the maximum impact on the final mark due to these penalties will be of -11 points out of 100.
D. The first time that any user incurs in cheating/copying will receive a zero in that submission or exercise. This will affect ALL the involved students. The second time it will imply failing the course for ALL the involved students.
To pass this part it is necessary to pass the final exam.
In case of failing the final exam, the maximum final mark will be limited to 40 (out of 100).
REMARK FOR REPEATING STUDENTS: repeating students will be dispensed of penalties for truancy if they have conflicting schedules with other courses.
REMARK ABOUT THE REPEAT EXAM (AND NEXT EXAMS FOR REPEATERS): in the repeat exam (and following exams) the student can choose to be evaluated with only the mark of the final exam. If the student does not choose this modality and prefers to be evaluated with the more comprehensive model which includes the exercises, this system will be modified according to the following rules:
A. The student will have to submit all the scored exercises he had not submitted and he will have the option to submit again the ones he had already submitted, with the purpose of improving his marks. The deadline for these submissions will be published after the first semester ends. These submissions must be uploaded to the corresponding items created in the virtual space of the course for this purpose.
B. The final mark will be calculated as follows: 60% Final Exam mark, 40% Scored exercises marks, being mandatory to pass the final exam to pass the course.
C. No penalties will apply concerning the late submissions and the absences of the semester.
D. The rules of aggregation of the mark of this part of the course (part A Juridical Infotech) with the other part (part B Communication skills) are those detailed above.
In case of failing the course due only to a low score in the scored exercises but having passed the final exam, in the repeat exam it will not be necessary to solve the exam and it will suffice to present a sufficiently improved version of the scored exercises.
If the student has to present himself to the THIRD call, he will have to recover the two parts of the subject, even if one has already passed it.
PART B: Communication Skills
The competencies of this part will be evaluated according to two sub-parts: continuous evaluation and final evaluation.
CONTINUOUS EVALUATION
It consists in the evaluation of student’s progression and acquisition of the competencies, and it will be implemented through the following exercises: public speeches in the classroom, exercises from the virtual campus, written exercises submitted in the classroom, class participation and short exams about the readings.
Continuous evaluation will be 50 % of the final mark, distributed in its components according to the following rule:
1) public speeches and written exercises: 25 %
2) short exams of the readings: 15 %
3) short exercises: 10 %
Written exercises
The student has to accomplish with the specified norms of presentation and she will try to achieve an excellent level of formal neatness.
If the student submits an exercise one day late, it will be scored over 50 points instead of 100, if he submits it more than 1 day late the score will be a zero.
The exercises whose grading method is “done” or “apt” are mandatory.
Additionally, the following criteria will apply when scoring written exercises: -2 points (out of 100) for each misspell and for each syntactic or lexical mistake.
The detection of partial plagiarism will imply a mark of zero for the exercise.
Public speeches in the classroom
The teacher will explain in the classroom the criteria and method of evaluation.
Readings
The student will read several books along the course. In the days the teacher will indicate, the student will take a short exam consisting of short questions about the books, to verify that the student has read them. These short exams will contribute to 15% of the final mark. The same criteria as above will apply for mistakes: misspells and syntactic and lexical mistakes will imply a penalty of -2 points (out of 100) for each mistake.
FINAL EVALUATION
It consists of a final exam which will contribute to the 50% of the final mark.
The following criteria will apply regarding mistakes: a penalty of -2 points (out of 100) for each misspell, syntactic or lexical mistake.
The final mark for the Communication skills part of the course
To sum up, the final mark will be calculated as follows:
50 % final exam
25 % continuous evaluation
15 % short exam of the reading
10 % shorts exercises
To pass the course the student has to pass both the continuous evaluation and the final evaluation. The student will pass the course only if she passes each part separately. In case of failing one part, she will have to pass it in the repeat exam, under the conditions established by the teacher. Once the student has passed the previously failed part, the calculation of the final mark will be redone. Additionally, to pass the whole course the student will have to pass also the other part of the course (part A Juridical Infotech).
The student who does not appear on time for an exam and does not provide the appropriate documentation to justify the delay will be graded with a 0.
Exam reviews will be done at the scheduled time and day. Nothing will be reviewed outside of this period.
Repeat exam
The student will repeat those parts which he has failed in the first exam.
If the student has to present himself to the THIRD call, he will have to recover the two parts of the subject, even if one has already passed it.
Truancy
Two absences are allowed. From the third and on, a penalty of -5 points (out of 100) for the final grade will apply.
The use of cell phones or similar devices is forbidden in the classroom. Laptops and tablets can be used with the explicit permission of the teacher and just for tasks related to the process of learning for the course.
Bibliography and resources
PART A: Juridical Infotech
Basic bibliography:
Microsoft Office Online Help (https://support.office.com/)
Delgado Cabrera, José María (2016), Office 2016: Manuales imprescindibles, Ed. Anaya Multimedia-Anaya Interactiva: Madrid (España).
Complementary bibliography:
Nevado Lledó, Cristina María (2016), Office 2016 (Guías prácticas), Ed. Anaya Multimedia-Anaya Interactiva: Madrid (España).
Trigo Aranda, Vicente, y Trigo Conde, Eric (2016), Office 2016 (Guías visuales), Ed. Anaya Multimedia-Anaya Interactiva: Madrid (España).
PART B: Communication Skills
(Required texts)
Dossier that students will acquire in the print shop of the UIC and documents provided in class or posted on the virtual campus.
Jiménez-Yáñez, Ricardo-María (2016). Escribir bien es de justicia. 2.ª edición muy ampliada y revisada. Cizur Menor: Aranzadi Thomson Reuters.
Gil, Alberto (2013). Cómo convencer eficazmente. Madrid: Palabra.
(Reading book)
Lee, Harper. Matar a un ruiseñor. Barcelona: ediciones B.
(Complementary texts)
Aristóteles. Retórica. (2008). Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
Casado, Manuel. (2012). El castellano actual: usos y normas. 10.ª ed. revisada. Pamplona: Eunsa.
Cassany, Daniel (2002). La cocina de la escritura. Barcelona: Anagrama.
Goatly, A. (2011). The language of metaphors (2nd Ed.). England: Routledge.
Jiménez-Yáñez, Ricardo-María (2020). Comunicar en la Universidad y en la vida profesional. Pamplona: Eunsa.
Llamas, Carmen y Ruth Breeze (2020). Metaphor in political conflict. Populism and discourse. Pamplona: Eunsa.
Weston, Anthony. (2011). Las claves de la argumentación. Edición actualizada. Barcelona: Ariel.