Alan L Tyree

Research

Major areas of research are:

Banking Law - There is a collection of on-line papers on the Australian Law of Banking and payment systems.
Artificial Intelligence - There is a small collection of on-line papers on the subject.
Computer assisted learning - There is a collection of on-line papers related to teaching which describe in detail my experiments with computer assisted learning in law. The following should be of interest:
- a brief description of the unusual form of computer self assessment known as the CRES method which allows free-form short answers;
- a more detailed report on the CRES method, "Cost-effective computer tutorials" which also includes a description of the SAGES automatic marking system for short answer questions;
- these tutorial methods have been used in the context of a modified Keller Plan course.
Two papers loosely associated with the topic of technology and international trade:
- The impact of technology on international trade in goods and services, a paper delivered at the Singapore Confernce on International Business Law, 1992; and
- Exploring the frontiers of cyberspace - the challenge of technology for the year 2000 and beyond - a paper delivered in Bangkok at the conference on Technology and World Trade organised by the Association of Thai Computing and IBM.

Books Published

New Zealand Banking Law, August 1987, Wellington, 525pp.
The Australian Law of Cheques and Payment Orders, Butterworths, October 1988.
Expert Systems in Law, Prentice-Hall, April 1989
Banking Law in Australia, Butterworths, January 1990
Banking Law in Australia, 2nd edition, Butterworths, January 1995
Halsbury's Laws of Australia, Banking and Finance, 1995
Digital Cash, Butterworths, January 1997
Sale of Goods, Butterworths, January 1998
Banking Law in Australia, 3rd edition, Butterworths, March 1998
The Law of Payment Systems, Butterworths, 2000; with Andrea Beatty
Banking Law in Australia, 4th edition, Butterworths, 2002
Tyree's New Zealand Banking Law, LexisNexis, 2003
Banking Law in Australia, 5th edition, Butterworths, 2005
Weerasooria's Banking Law, 6th edition, Butterworths, 2006, with Prudence Weaver
Weaver and Craigie's The Law Relating to Banker and Customer in Australia, 3rd edition, looseleaf service, Thomson Lawbook Co, co-author since 2002
Self-publishing with LyX, Sage Tutorial Systems Pty Ltd, Katoomba 2007; available on-line for free download at this site (warning: pdf); available in print or free download from Lulu.com.
Banking Law in Australia, 6th edition, LexisNexis Butterworths, 2008

Teaching

I am primarily interested in "non-standard" methods of teaching which emphasise student autonomy. I am a great fan of the now outdated Keller Plan of teaching and many of my actual teaching methods are adapted from Keller's ideas.

Keller is often dismissed as being too "behavioural", but I believe that this misses the main point. The strengths of his teaching method are that:

it emphasises the need for the student to learn by reading or from other source materials without the active presence of the teacher; and
it suggests ways and means of facilitating this learning process; in particular, the use of clearly stated objectives (so that the student knows what is expected) and the use of regular self-assessment (so that the student knows when those objectives have been achieved).

Where Keller advocated the use of "proctors" I used computer assisted testing. Keller insisted that students be unable to continue until meeting a standard of "perfection", but in conformity with the less authoritarian approach of our decade I permitted students to make their own choice. See the discussion of Intellectual Property for a more complete description of methods. The CRES method of computer testing/tutoring was used in these courses.

In spite of the effectiveness of these methods, I would not advise younger staff members to attempt them. My own experience at the University of Sydney Faculty of Law was that other staff and other students are extremely hostile. It simply doesn't matter that the methods have been proved time and again to be more effective than traditional methods, they are simply too threatening for law school conservatism.

There is a small collection of on-line papers that describe my experiments with the Keller Plan and the associated testing methods.

Please send inquiries & questions to alan@austlii.edu.au.

Last modified: Mon Sep 29 08:28:48 EST 2008