We have created a section on this website to help you answer this question for yourself. It is called "Is online learning for me"?

The seminars taught online cover the same content and skills as in the face-to face course, and these are taught to the same assessment standard.

The seminars that are taught face-to-face are identical in format for both forms of the course.

10 hours per week. This figure has been ascertained from surveying trainees who have done the course over the last two years.

Activities are scheduled for an average of 2.75 hours per night and 5.5 hours in the weekend. The time estimates are based on the expected time it will take the average trainee to complete the activity. Trainees who work at a slower or quicker pace may find the activities take a little longer or shorter, as the case may be.

We have designed the course to ensure that the seminars that rely heavily on personal interaction and/or a performance skill (Interviewing/Advising, Negotiation and Advocacy) are delivered almost entirely face-to-face.

The online components deal with skills that have a written product or focus on gaining knowledge/understanding (eg Drafting, Analysis, Trial Preparation, Professional Responsibility).

Pair and group work is minimised in the online components, as trainees invariably work at their own pace and collaboration is more problematic.
Because of that, we have designed the online components to provide you with:

• excellent ‘scaffolding’ for task completion,
• automatic feedback on your work for most tasks, and
• personal feedback from a live instructor on selected tasks.

Furthermore, you are encouraged to email or telephone your instructor with any queries or concerns you have at any time.

Where collaboration is required during a distance component of the course, the IPLS learning management system will provide access to online discussion forums where you and your allocated partner(s) for a particular task can exchange messages and documents.

We do make some use of video-based material to support the learning objectives of the course, but the course as a whole is based on ‘learning by doing’ rather than the lecture-based approach you would have experienced at law school.

The IPLS welcomes you at each of its branches. It has full-time branches in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. While you are on the part-distance course, you may come in to any of those branches during normal working hours and seek assistance from an instructor or you can use the facilities of the branch for IPLS work.

For all online seminars, trainees are required to submit written work via the online learning management system on a regular basis as part of the coursework.

But for all seminars, the final assessment for that seminar is completed in person at the branch through which one is enrolled.

The course is not designed particularly to enhance your typing or computer skills. But, inevitably, your skills in these areas will be reinforced as you complete coursework.

On the other hand, you will be using real-world resources (programs, research tools, precedents) and doing simulated real world tasks, which you will be able to use /refer to in legal practice.

Certainly. In fact, the online course will demand of you that you be a self-motivated learner, in tune with your learning styles, in control of your commitments, and able to:

• work independently
• keep up with coursework, and
• stay motivated.