LawBot Project Scope The Law of Contract module is a content-heavy module and includes many different elements for students to master. One of the elements is the identification and analysis of various clauses that are typically found in written contracts. The contract clause database was initially developed on Blackboard as a Wiki but suffered from the shortcoming of not being as interactive and convenient for students who preferred engaging on MIM apps. As such, the initial scoping of the LawBot Project was to ring-fence the content of the chatbot to the clause-library database, with the possibility of increasing the content of the database at a later stage. Herein LawBot describes itself as follows (see Figure 1 below): Conceptually, LawBot will allow students to search for clauses, consider the legal theory that underpins such a clause, view examples of such clauses and then be referred to the prescribed material, so that students may read further on that particular clause where the student requires more information (see an example in Figure 2 below). Figure 1: LawBot describing its function and purpose Figure 2: Initial LawBot prompt to search for a clause Herein, the use of a chatbot can be described as based on a so-called “conversational design”, which facilitates the dissemination of information in a manner that is both familiar and accessible to students (Baskara 2023; Harry 2023; Khan 2020). In other words, chatbots can be used as a medium of learning wherein information is organised in a way that is interactive, interesting, and fun on a platform that is familiar to the student (Khan 2020). In this regard, a chatbot in teaching and learning would be underpinned and supported by a constructivist epistemological approach, wherein the chatbot functions as a facilitator for the transfer of knowledge to a student. However, instead of working in a group to construct knowledge, a chatbot allows the transfer of knowledge to be accomplished on an individual basis and can be repeated as many times as necessary for the student. This epistemological approach underpins the teaching methodology of LawBot. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 82
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