As in the United Kingdom, Portugal has a recent Code of Civil Procedure. Therefore, the trend is that, in the coming years, the reforms to be made will concern the cost of legal aid, as well as the prison system. It is worth remembering that the CEPEJ reports do not only deal with civil procedure, but with the law as a whole.
I still intend to develop this post, but What comes to mind today is that there is a cycle in reforms . Elsa presents themselves as a thickening of aspirations. It is a movement that affects the entire community of one country and the scientific community of several. Hence the existence of concomitant reforms.
After the renovation, there is a time of leveling expectations. Working groups are created to monitor the results and address persistent problems, such as the expansion of access to justice and its cost of administration.
Meanwhile, new cycles of expectation are emerging, as is the growing expectation about the potential application of artificial intelligence in Justice. This is a cycle that is currently at its peak, which is why it is most likely that a cycle of frustration and leveling expectations will begin. And so we continue in cycles, making reforms as experiments.
The productivity of the largest Brazilian courts
Comparisons of the largest state courts, considering their budget and collection of costs.
Or Justice in Numbers demonstrates that the average cost of expenses per inhabitant in large state courts (equivalent to R$ 279.70) is less than half of the expense of a medium-sized court. In other words, there is an economy of scale in the Judiciary, which is why any indicator generated by the average has only relative value.
As an example, at the state level, the large courts are, in this order: São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul. In fact, such states tend to be more productive, in the sense that each inhabitant costs a relatively low amount compared to the judicial budget. However, what stands out is how the Federal District (which has its Judiciary maintained by the Union) is much more expensive than the average:
Another interesting aspect, still concerning the differences between different spheres and states, is that Court fees vary widely . For example, according to the latest report, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Goiás and Mato Grosso collected, on average, more than R$ 1.6 thousand per distributed process . In contrast, the Federal District collected R$ 240.69 and Alagoas collected R$ 141.65 per distributed process.
These are some examples of how delicate it is to make comparisons by average. After all, the size of the courts varies greatly, as well as their efficiency in terms of allocated budget. In the same way, the collection of legal costs varies enormously by state, making any comparison by the average only an approximation, a starting point for reflection.
Gamification in the classroom: beyond Kahoot!
Comparison of paid and free apps for playful activities in the classroom.
I recently tested the app CrowdParty , which aims to be a gamification alternative to Kahoot! , a true edtech giant. CrowdParty's proposal is to help break the ice between participants in virtual and face-to-face meetings, through electronic games that invite socializing (in the world of work) and learning (in the academic environment).
These characteristics define the market for tools for interacting with the public. This assumes that you already have a presentation in progress, as tools like CrowdParty are just an accessory to communication . It is very important to highlight this feature, as it follows that the remote user will need two screens or even two devices to interact, one to follow the meeting and the other to play properly.
The classic games of this type of tool are trivia and riddles. But CrowdParty already has some variations of these games, whose content can be customized. In fact, despite having some advanced settings, The platform is still in the early stages of development , not having some basic tools, such as interface translation. That's why any direct comparison with Kahoot! it would be unfair.
In terms of price, CrowdParty is free for up to 10 players, which is compatible with other free plans on the market. Plans for 50 players start at USD 20/month, which I consider a high value:
CrowdParty is not the only alternative to Kahoot!, and there are several apps on the market that intend to exploit opportunities left by the segment leader. Or AhaSlides , for example, has a free plan with different types of questions, in addition to offering a slide tool focused on teachers. The price is competitive, costing USD 5/month for up to 50 players.
If you need a free solution for up to 25 people, the Poll Everywhere seems to be the only option. It is an option with a more sober look than the others. The GimKit , despite being a small company, focuses on corporate plans for schools, starting at USD 1,000/year/school. Still within the educational market, with the difference of being more oriented to the activity of applying tests and being more sober, there is the ClassMaker .
There is also the Quizizz , which is perhaps the most direct competitor to Kahoot!, given its huge library of templates. Despite this large collection, the types of questions available are limited. Its price is USD 19/month for the 100-player plan. Or Slido , in turn, is an option focused on the corporate market , much more than in education. It has the great advantage of a free plan with up to 100 players, but limited to three polls:
In conclusion, there are several alternatives when it comes to engaging your audience in person or virtually. Some are more corporate solutions and others are more educational, although generally the apps cater to both.
If you're looking for a free plan, the choice will depend on the size of your audience . Although it has limitations, Slido is the only one that allows up to 100 participants. Next, Poll Everywhere is also the only one to allow 25 participants in the free plan. The other apps offer free plans only for small groups, which for me would be insufficient.
I participated in an article published by Correio Braziliense, in 28/05/2022 , on the regulation of the professional activity of influencers. My collaboration highlights that none of the legislative initiatives to date have made progress in the Legislative Branch. In the words of Camilla Germano:
The discussion on regulation for the activity of influencers has arisen within the scope of the Legislature, but the proposals presented so far have not yet been successful, as explained by Professor Henrique Araújo Costa, from the Department of Law of the University of Brasília (UnB). He details that there have been several attempts, since 2016, to vote on bills in the National Congress that help regulate the practice in Brazil. Many of them, however, were shelved.
In 2018, federal deputy Eduardo da Fonte (PP-PE) started the processing of a bill that aims to regulate the work of digital influencers. At the time, the document was shelved for lack of content. Bill No. 1138, of 2022, rescued this text in the Federal Senate, but with some reservations, in order to differentiate journalists from influencers, but the project was also shelved. (...)
Professor Henrique points out that, in Brazil, there is still no concern to regulate the action of influencers in the field of health, but points out that other topics are being debated. "Here, we are more concerned so far with children's rights, but this issue of the economy can be equally harmful. So the big question, since in this world we live in, influencers are organized into niches, is whether it needs to be regulated or if the (laws) that already exist are sufficient", he ponders.
In terms of advertising, there is the guide of the National Council for Advertising Self-Regulation (Conar), which mentions a series of guidelines for commercial content on social networks, especially that generated by digital influencers. The "Influencer Advertising Guide" was created in December 2020 and gives guidelines and reinforces measures of the code of ethics.
However, Henrique explains that the guide is not regulatory in nature, but rather to instruct and guide professionals on what should be alerted and what does not need to be noted. In some cases, the Consumer Protection Code may apply, but the document does not comprehensively deal with advertising for influencers.
Read the full article here:
The Federal Justice is a collection machine
Comparison of the profiles of the judicial spheres, demonstrating how the Federal Justice collects more than it spends.
Unlike what happens with the State Courts, the Federal Justice collects much more than it spends (288% in relation to its budget). There needs to be a limit for this machine to stop being efficient, but currently the scenario is still very favorable to the Union.
It is even possible to say, based on the data from Justice in Numbers, that the State Justice fulfills a role in promoting jurisdiction, imposing a cost on the State. This is natural in the promotion of a public policy and in the provision of a public service.
What the CNJ ends up demonstrating is that the branches of Justice are very different and They fulfill very different objectives . The following graphs show the absolute collection by branch of Justice, as well as this same collection compared to the respective budget:
In the end, it is not a good deal for the State to invest in Justice, but - so far - this same investment has proved to be a great deal for the Union. This, however, does not apply to the Labor Courts, which are really an expense for the Union. It fulfills another function, as it is aimed at pacifying conflicts in labor relations.
We cannot lose sight of the fact that the Union does not only spend on this impartial third party, but also on the Attorney General's Office itself. According to data from the Transparency Portal , the AGU's budget is approximately R$ 4 billion per year. In other words, the Federal Government's collection in the Federal Court cannot be understood only as a net revenue, as there are other expenses involved. Even so, the balance is very positive for the Union.
How to apply objective tests in the pandemic
Akindi is the application that makes it easy to apply and correct an objective test for free over the internet
As soon as the Covid-19 pandemic began and classes were suspended, teachers had to adapt quickly. I believe that this adaptation, to a large extent, has been limited to the transposition of face-to-face classes to the same video classes. As a result, during the pandemic, the concern with evaluation took a back seat, as we had more urgent problems.
In fact, within my universe (I am a professor at a Law School), I feel that there has always been a preponderant concern with teaching activities (with evaluation activities kept in the background). In addition, we need to take into account that the law course works with many conceptual subjects - which requires the application of essay tests. In other words, as in the humanities in general, the law course is a fertile ground for more open tests.
In practice, until the need for personal isolation, the teachers with whom I am closest were more dedicated to evaluations ended up investing in evaluation techniques that required face-to-face meetings and creativity. But what now? Well, now we all have a greater incentive to invest in assessments that are objective and can be applied remotely without too much trouble.
Luckily for me, the subjects I teach are quite dogmatic, with a lot of basis in the law. So I was able to invest in an objective evaluation solution and remote application.
My current option is the Akindi , which stands as an option to the American market leader (called Scantron and which does exactly what the large and expensive scanners for objective proof correction have always done). This comparison may not make much sense to us, but it is important to understand who Akindi's audience is and the reason why they do not offer Portuguese translation in their service or any of their materials.
See Akindi in action in the following video . This is a simulation of the test, in the view of a student, who has just received the invitation to carry out the activity:
Now that we've seen how Akindi stands and how it works, I'll tell you how I see Akindi. It is a solution for applying tests on paper or remotely, whose differential is its simplicity. You don't need any elaborate system to use Akindi, you just need to have an email list and a registration number, which can be the official number or any number created for your control.
Although it is a stand-alone tool, it is possible to integrate with the most robust learning systems on the market, including: Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle, and Brightspace. It is possible to conclude that, with this strategy, Akindi is targeting rich schools, which already have a robust Learning Management System (LMS) system.
With this type of integration, the roll call continues to work in the main LMS and Akindi works as a layer, practically invisible, for the application of tests. In my case, with no LMS and no need integration, it is even easier to opt for Akindi, as it has a free plan to manage only one class, with one assessment at a time .
To manage more than one class with the same login, it would be necessary to pay USD 99 per year, in estimated values. I say estimated, because currently Akindi no longer publishes a price list and only works with budgets on a case-by-case basis. So this old value can currently be much higher.
As it is a program that takes care of only one task, the implementation of its functionalities can be seamless. In Support Area From Akindi you can see a little bit of how the workflow has no bottlenecks and how the system is, at the same time, simple and powerful. It is a product in constant evolution, as can be seen in the News area of Akindi.
The weakest points, if any, are known to the development team. As an example, Akindi does not have a native editor for the elaboration of questions with complex formatting, because its option is to convert a test that has been prepared in Word only with text. Not ideal, but that's okay as you can fix the import errors manually afterwards. Also, I don't use graphics in my exams.
Some aspects of Akindi are really amazing, for example, it is possible: schedule a test time, limit the duration of the test, set up different durations for students with special needs, prevent the student from being able to go back to review their markings, display one question at a time, shuffle the test questions for each student , send notifications to each student, etc.
In addition to offering a robust solution for the application of the test, sending a personalized email to each student, Akindi has an administration area with graphs that indicate to the teacher which are the easy and difficult questions. This is just an example, but it already illustrates the program's capacity.
All this makes Akindi my definitive option, after so many years looking for a tool that would be able to meet my assessment needs, especially in the scenario of social isolation in which we find ourselves. I know Moodle does all of this, but Akindi's elegance is unbeatable.
CEPEJ (European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice) is one of the main sources for those who like comparative law. In its last plenary session (12/08/2021), a Four-Year Action Plan was approved, with the objective of adopting new technologies for the improvement of Justice.
The plan intends to reconcile, with the help of technology, the effectiveness of the provision with the quality of jurisdictional public services. The axes that support this strategy are transparency, collaboration, valuing people, accessibility, rationality, responsibility and responsiveness.
At the same time, on the same occasion, CEPEJ revised its planning for the promotion of the ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) by the Judiciary. The currently revised work began in 2018, when five key points for adopting AI solutions were established : respect for fundamental rights; non-discrimination; data quality and security; transparency, impartiality and fairness; as well as the independence of the user.
From the beginning, CEPEJ has shown that it is aware that there is no magic solution to the matter, especially considering its pioneering spirit in trying to establish conditions for AI to advance while respecting human rights. Two years later, the same initial working group aimed to assess the feasibility of this mission, having presented its report in 2020.
In mid-2021, the first version of the planning for certification of AI solutions was presented. But, taking into account the discussions that had taken place and the difficulty in creating a solution that respected the vision of several countries, the conclusion of the work was postponed to the end-of-year plenary meeting.
The objective of this initiative (moved by the Council of Europe), despite its initial stage, is to regulate high-risk AI solutions. As there are many countries involved, it is natural that Europe does not move so quickly on this point. As an example, Brazil already has a regulation of the matter, including guidelines set by the CNJ. On this point we can say that we are more advanced than Europe.
Email notification was one of the first (and most useful) features that emerged when the courts' procedural monitoring systems were created. Since then, a lot has evolved, which has also complicated the way of monitoring the processes.
Fortunately, the ways of monitoring websites in general have also evolved. Personally, I really like the Visualping , as its business model allows the purchase of credits to monitor certain sources on demand, without the need to subscribe to the service monthly . If it is a critical follow-up, just increase the frequency of verification. If the follow-up is not critical, then the free plan may suffice.
Here is the example of how I am following a process in the STF. Basically, all I had to do was indicate the link to monitor and add settings to my liking. In general, I choose to check by the text of the page (not by the visual capture or of certain elements). And, specifically for this case, I configured Visualping to browse the site by clicking on the "Virtual Session" tab so that I would be alerted of each new vote cast during the trial session.
Alerts with Visualping work very well, and can be configured by various integrations. I receive notifications through Slack, but you can choose to receive them by email, SMS, Teams, etc. Visualping is also very interesting because Allow you to save your monitoring credits by suspending the scan overnight and on weekends.
When Visualping does not work, which can happen, for example, if it is necessary to configure a very complex navigation within the site, an alternative is the ChangeTower . The downside is that ChangeTower requires a monthly subscription to the service (starting at $9). Even so, it can be worth the investment, as the peace of mind of knowing that you will be notified of any news saves you from having to perform manual checks on the site at all times.
Recently I set up ChangeTower (on my paid account) to search the Federal Court website for the existence of new lawsuits for a certain party. The alert has been working well, but, from the print, it is possible to notice that half of the time the PJe system is slow and does not load the response . For my purpose this is not a problem, because at other times the system works and returns the search for the party's lawsuits and allows me to know if any lawsuit has been filed against the client quickly.
If you are a lawyer, how are you following your processes? Any suggestions that will bring us peace of mind in this infamous and indispensable activity? What consoles me is that, despite the cost of the service, not knowing a tempo quickly can cost much more.