Please note this course is run with VCUG3001. Approved law students wanting to count the course towards their law studies must be enrolled in LAWS3001.

'Universities serve to make students think: to resolve problems by argument supported by evidence; not to be dismayed by complexity, but bold in unravelling it'.  (What are universities for? by Geoffrey Boulton and Colin Lucas 2008).   This course takes up this challenge by offering later year students the opportunity to explore a series of complex issues. The connections between economic, historical, social, legal, scientific, engineering and environmental and moral dimensions of complex problems will be explored.    

The course will examine the linked themes of  'collapse' and ‘resilience'.  Case studies will include  the collapse of empires and economies, contemporary development, health and environmental issues, engineering and network failures and the moral and legal dimensions of all these issues.

The course will encourage students to share their existing disciplinary perspectives to develop deep understandings of how to go about effective team based approaches to unravelling complex issues.

Enrolment process

This is a selective course and up to a maximum of 15 students will be selected on basis of outstanding results.

Interested students need to register an expression of interest by June 3 2012 and give their name, student number, and a short statement expaining why they wish to do the course.

For more information about this course, please contact Student Administration at the ANU College of Law.

1. Enhanced ability to analyse complex issues, including from a legal perspective;
2. Knowledge of different methodologies for analysing complex issues, including legal methodologies ;
3. Ability to apply more than one method in order to unravel complex issues.

• Reflective learning portfolio that includes significant reflection upon the issues from a legal dimension, and also includes evidence of preparation for each of the student run seminars/tutorials. (stage I, 15 per cent, stage II 30 per cent)
• Facilitating a tutorial/seminar to maximise classmates learning (preparation 5 per cent, delivery 20 per cent)
• identifying a complex problem and developing a policy for addressing it. This will be done in multidisciplinary groups and will be assessed in several stages during the last four weeks of the course (30 per cent)

Four hours contact a week, made up each week of a two-hour lecture and a two-hour tutorial - note weekly attendance at tutorials is required. Six hours independent learning a week.

Students need to have completed 96 units towards their degree including at least 30 units of LAWS1000 level courses.

VCUG3001 Unravelling Complexity

N/A

Before the course starts students should read the open access course web site including past student assessment items.

Students should also read one of the following books:

• Bammer, Gabriele and Michael Smithson 2008, Uncertainty and risk: multidisciplinary perspectives, Earthscan
• Bar-Yam, Yaneer 2004, Making things work: solving complex problems in a complex world, NECSI Knowledge Press
• Brown, Valerie, John Harris and Jacqueline Russel 2010, Tackling wicked problems: through the transdisciplinary imaginaation, Earthscan
• Harris, Graham 2007, Seeking sustainability in an age of complexity, Cambridge University Press
• Mitchell, Melanie 2009 Complexity a guided tour, Oxford University Press

Lecture theatre with digital audio (and if possible video) recording facilities