Abstract:

I. Location of the paper in the context of Conference:

The author presents this paper to the International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI 2009) that will be held in Madrid on the 16th-18th of November 2009. Within its main goal -the promotion of international collaboration in Education and Research in all educational fields and disciplines- the author wants to study the following two matters:

->Education: New trends and experiences: Education practice trends and issues: The author is teacher of Jurisdictional Law, the branch of Law that explains and regulates how to resolve disputes of citizens in the courts. Recently, in the context of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) world movement, have appeared complementary tools to jurisdiction to solve disputes. All of them are studied in Jurisdictional Law and by Jurisdictional Law. One of them is electronic consumer arbitration. Its main feature is that it is developed by electronic means. The author of this paper has designed a pedagogical project to explain and practice this method of resolution with Law students using a computer.

->Technologies and Methodologies applied to Education and Research: learning and teaching methodologies: the author will explain how he have designed and implemented during 2008-2009 school year a pedagogical intervention project to teach Law students how electronic consumer arbitration works. Ordinary master classes have been changed by group work using computers.

II. Electronic consumer arbitration as a new method of conflict resolution.

We have to situate electronic consumer arbitration, first of all, in the worldwide movement ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution), which advocates the need to diversify conflict resolution tools and the use, wherever possible and appropriate, non-jurisdictional techniques, based on the consensus of the parties, as the way to avoid all the weaknesses of the judicial system (confrontation between parties, dissatisfaction, high cost, inefficiency,…) while ensuring access to justice for all citizens.

More specifically, electronic consumer arbitration must be placed in the last phase of the evolution of ADR, in what is called ODR (On Line Dispute Resolution). With this designation in the Anglo-Saxon culture two realities want to be described: the possibility of using private ADR techniques to resolve the increasingly frequent disputes arising from transactions and business in the network (on line legal transaction), and the possibility of combining the techniques of private settlement with the new technologies, developing conciliation, mediation or arbitration through the Internet.

III. A new methodology of teaching and learning. The experience of the 2008-2009 school year at the University of the Basque Country.

2008-2009 school-year, the one who writes these lines has worked on electronic consumer arbitration with the students of the Faculty of Law. In order to develop this aim, have been followed a methodology based on three pillars: (1) cooperative learning, (2) problem-based learning, and (3) case method.

Besides, ordinary master classes have been changed by group work using computers. All from a constructivist approach to teaching and learning and using new technologies as instrument to improve them.

Keywords:

electronic consumer arbitration, alternative dispute resolution (adr), on line dispute.