The Dog Files

TRU law professor Katie Sykes created this site as a portfolio of projects by students her Animals and the Law class:

A class assignment was to create an informative piece to raise public awareness about a problem or issue in animal law.

One of the biggest problems with the law that is supposed to protect animals is that people generally don’t realize how ineffective the law is: how many gaps and loopholes there are, how weak enforcement is, how much mistreatment of animals is legal or carried on with impunity. We think the law is there to prevent animal suffering and harm to animals, but the reality doesn’t measure up.

The students’ multimedia creations – podcasts, a video and a website – explore fascinating questions about animal law. They are clever and thought-provoking. Check them out, and you’ll find out something you didn’t know before about animals and the law.

Why is this site inspiring to you?

I like how this moves away from te blog format of a stream of posts and serves as an elegant, but simple portfolio of student multimedia sites. It’s a well done class portfolio.

Plus it makes use of dog metaphors- but it comes from legal phrases (visit the site to find out more)

Who should see this site?

This site is a model of using a web site as a portfolio of projects, and WordPress works well as it handles the various media formats that her students used.

What ideas/elements from this site might you want to use in your own work?

The concept alone is useful, an example of putting an openETC site to use not as an entire course site, but a container to work as a showcase of student creativity.

Where is this site?

Chase the Dog Files at https://thedogfiles.opened.ca/