Frank et al -
Teaching cost effective online legal research techniques could be done
most effectively if the major vendors would agree to program in a feature to
allow students to view what the search would have cost had it been done at
commercial rates. I know this terrific proposal has been made by us academics
on many an occasion over the past decade or so, but maybe if more of us begin
asking for it we will actually see something happen. After all, cost effective
research is also in the vendors' interest. At present the closest we get is the
ability to see what a file will cost to search on LEXIS by hitting the segments
key at the file screen; obviously, this is not good enough.
A related request to the vendors might be to limit the ability of
students to print documents to something like 50 pages per student per month.
This might push the abusers to be a bit more judicious in their use of this
feature. The usage letter we received from WESTLAW this year included lines of
off-line printing and at $.02 per line we would have been socked for another
$100 grand had we been billed at commercial rates. I believe this cost factors
into decisions from the vendors to push educational usage rates up in addition
to the bad habits it encourages many students to adopt. If most of us agree, we
should all be pushing for a cap.
While not a direct answer to your query, I hope this helps.
- Blair Kauffman
University of Wisconsin
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