Developing Case-Based Communities of Practice for Teaching the Legal Aspects of Construction: Lessons Learned in Taiwan

Abstract

To enhance the learning for graduate students to understand legal issues and dispute resolution in the construction industry, students can be provided with a learning platform for exchanging and sharing knowledge and experience among students and experienced instructors. With the assistance of the Internet, construction law related experiences acquired from previous projects can be discussed and shared with students. This study utilizes the case-based communities of practice approach to capture and manage engineer experiences. Via the case-based communities of practice approach, students and instructors can exchange and share discussions and comments related to selected topics and cases. The proposed case-based communities of practice learning (CCPL) system was developed and demonstrated to be effective when applied to teach students about construction law at a university in Taiwan. Construction law related experiences can be taught and shared among students, thus enhancing students’ abilities to resolve problems and disputes related to construction law. The combined results of various case studies demonstrate that the application of the CCPL system to the legal aspects of construction courses offers an effective means of sharing practical legal knowledge and experience, especially among graduate students who lack previous legal experience.