Università Roma Tre

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND CONTENT
The course aims at providing the students with a general introduction to the methodology for searching, reading, classifying and archiving legal documents, both in paper archives and electronic databases, besides the traditional methods based on classical research tools.
In an age characterized by massive information, only a strong knowledge of such research tools and methods can allow the students, excessively accustomed to modern information systems, to master the proper and professional research methodology which is considered nowadays outdated and useless, but it is a core skill for those engaged in legal professions.

REQUIRED MATERIALS
- Demo database 2000-2001 provided on free DVD
- Guide to Collection of legislation, literature, jurisprudence (freely available in the library in hard copy)
- Journal in hard copy
- Introduction to the consultation of the official websites of Italian Constitutional Court, the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic, and Normattiva
- Digital guides to the use of professional software
- Recommended readings

The final exam will be conducted using computers and will consist in practical exercises for searching literature (http://www.bitinia.com/uniroma3/docs_sito/DOC-01-argomenti-verifica-elettronica-090104.pdf) and jurisprudence ((http://www.bitinia.com/uniroma3/docs_sito/DOC-02-argomenti-verifica-elettronica-090110.pdf) made available by the instructor (students shall contact the instructor at the email address maurizio.converso.rm3@gmail.com at least one month before the date selected for the final exam in order to learn the technical procedure for completing the research exercises, practiced during the lectures, and subject of the final exam).

The knowledge of the classical methods for searching in hardcopy sources (Collection of legislation, literature, jurisprudence) is a fundamental prerequisite for conducting any research on legal documents (both on line and off line) and sharing the research outcomes with other researchers physically or via Internet.