A message from the Editors

With the release of this, the first issue of JILT, we invite our readers to participate in a new venture in scholarly legal publishing. This journal deliberately sets out to be experimental. As Abdul Paliwala suggests in his article, our objective is to not merely to take text from paper and reproduce it as text on screen but to develop a “living” journal which will encourage a community of scholarship, built on the traditional principles of rigorous academic discourse but adapted to take advantage of the new technologies. Electronic journals can do many things that paper cannot. Our experiment is to develop through a process of trial and error a system of conferencing, debate and discourse that will continue to develop even after initial publication. We also hope it will be a system that our readers will enjoy using. We welcome our readers’ participation in a number of ways:

• By commenting on and adding to the subject matter of articles. This electronic journal has a much enhanced facility for dialogue between authors and readers. It is our intention to publish this dialogue as it happens in the form of an electronic conference. You can do this either by using the built in comment facility in the journal or by sending an electronic mail message to [email protected] or to [email protected]. For example, we have included in our “Work in Progress” section the first draft of the BILETA Report on Information Technology for UK law schools. We hope that all those interested in legal education, students, lecturers and practitioners will take this opportunity to add their comments as part of the consultation process to produce a document that truly reflects the needs and concerns of the BILETA membership.
• By commenting on the form and approach of the journal. With an electronic journal it is possible to fix any bugs or minor errors. If you come across any, please inform us so that we can provide an even more effective and professional service. We would also appreciate your comments on the user interface, in particular what facilities you would like to be provided in a journal environment.