Apps for Justice Challenge
What is this?
Now in its third year and run in partnership with the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, our Apps for Justice Challenge is a creative, collaborative way to explore access to justice (A2J) issues, as well as fundamental legal concepts and areas of law, through the lens of technology.
How do I run it?
This program is designed to run during a multi-week period in order to give you and your students time to go through each of the five days of the program, with each “day” being a 60-minute chunk.
The first day takes a broad view of access to justice incorporating OJEN’s Access to Justice Game as well as discussion questions for the class. The second day uses a warm-up scenario (i.e., one that is shorter and less complex than the main one for the challenge) to get students to put themselves into someone’s else shoes, imagining what it would feel like to experience multiple A2J hurdles and barriers, and starting to think about how technology might help to address and alleviate them. In the classroom materials, real-life examples of apps and websites that have done this successfully are shared so that students can see the applications in a concrete way.
On Day 3, the challenge’s main scenario is introduced. This is a scenario that builds upon the narrative of the first scenario from Day 2, following the central character along their journey as they encounter further complex issues that engage multiple different areas of law. After they sit with this narrative, students will be encouraged to select one of these issues and legal areas that they wish to work to help solve through an app idea. This is where the collaboration comes into play, as well as learning how to deliver constructive feedback as the newly formed groups share their preliminary ideas.
Day 4 is a big working session during which the groups spend the majority of the class collaborating on their app’s mock-up through either a hard copy or digital poster. All the groups last year did this digitally through either slides or a mock website. It is up to you as to the type of presentation, but all of the posters should have the foundational elements of the app that are listed in the classroom materials. (Note here that it is unlikely that students will be able to complete the entire mock-up during one sixty-minute session so homework can be assigned either before or after this day to allow for more time to work on this.)
The fifth and last day is a chance for groups to share their ideas in a positive, open forum with opportunities for feedback from their fellow classmates. To help this process along, we have developed a feedback form for students that has tips for giving good feedback as well as space for them to make notes as they listen to the presentations. At the end of the presentation, you may allow the class to vote on a winner; this can be done both if you’d like to have a winner on an individual classroom level but also if you wish to submit a submission into OJEN at the end of the program period for feedback.
New this year: in order to increase accessibility and flexibility in the running of the program, classrooms will have the opportunity to submit either their winning app proposal or, should they so desire, a selection of the app ideas that students came up with. All submissions will be reviewed by a panel of OJENers and reps from the University of Ottawa and feedback will be provided. Additionally, one winner will be selected, awarding creativity, innovation and addressing a pressing access to justice issue.
OK, this sounds fun! How do I sign up?
If this sounds like something you’re interested in for your classroom (and we hope that it is!)registration will open February 10th and close on March 7th. Classroom materials, including the teacher’s guide and the scenarios, will be available once registration has closed.
Once registration has closed and the materials have been distributed, there will be an open Google Doc shared in which teachers (and students, should the teachers desire) will be encouraged to post their questions about the materials, scenarios or the running of the program. Questions will be answered by OJEN staff within two weekdays. This will ensure continued and sustained support throughout the challenge, as well as shared learning and exchanged knowledge with other participants.
You may run the program in the way that you like once materials have been released, as long as you get through the five days by the date that submissions are due in April. However, should you and your students not wish to submit for feedback and enter the contest, you are free to run it on your own timelines once the materials have been released.
Should you have any questions about the above, please reach out to us through our dedicated challenge e-mail address: appsforjustice@ojen.ca.
2025 registration
Registration opens: Monday, February 10th
Registration closes: Friday, March 7th, 11:59 p.m.
Related resource
Access to Justice Legal Apps Challenge Modules (A University of Ottawa mini-course)