Course Catalogue

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This optional course seeks to provide a programme of academic (and cultural) benefit for up to 10 students from the Universities of Mainz, Germany and Glasgow, Scotland who otherwise would not have any international dimension to their studies. The design of the course aims to give students a working understanding of another legal system and thereafter to allow groups of students from both institutions to work together on a joint comparative law research topic.

The course will be run in collaboration with the University of Mainz. It will be delivered both at Mainz and at Glasgow.

The course will be taken in third year but will be a level 2 course.

The course is not part of a study abroad exchange programme. The course benefits from external funding from DAAD (the German Academic Exchange authority).

The limit of 10 courses is necessary because of the funding which covers travel expenses.

There will be 12 contact within a total of 100 learning hours (10 credits).

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Constitutional Law 1

This course has been chosen to ensure that all third year LLB students will be in a position to apply to take the course.

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The assessment will be grading of a joint research paper prepared in groups. This will involve the following:

■ Determination of research groups (after student integration events)

■ Selection of proposed comparative law study topic

■ Presentation on proposed topic to the rest of the group, followed by group discussion

■ Final submission of written proposal and approval

■ Joint work (by electronic means) on topic

■ Submission of a group 'interim report' indicating detailed outline of the written report, progress made to date, and any assistance required (ie, by way of guidance).

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. For non Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

This course aims to develop an understanding of another domestic European legal system. This course has been designed to help enhance the UG student experience by making available a meaningful international project to students who otherwise would not be taking part in study abroad opportunities at level 3.

The course also seeks to develop certain transferable or key skills in students, i.e. communication, problem-solving, working with others, improving one's own learning and performance, and IT.

By the end of this course students will have:

■ gained an awareness of the fundamental organising principles (i.e.constitutional and judicial aspects; methods of legal analysis; etc.) of another European legal system;

■ compared and contrasted and critically analysed the legal rules (including their development, content, application, etc) of one aspect of domestic law selected by you and approved by the course co-ordinators);

■ taken responsibility for your own learning (that is, managed the development of your own learning by managing time and tasks, learning both independently and with others, using library research skills, and assessing individual performance)

■ developed oral and written communication skills (that is, to develop abilities to express facts, concepts and opinions when writing and speaking with clarity and confidence and in a manner appropriate to the task or purpose)

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.