User generated content and collaboration, also called « Web 2.0 », offer new possibilities in the context of a thriving and open Internet. Digital environments that employ these production mecanisms allow user communities to enrich a virtual space. Using a constructivist approach, we explore how collaboration can serve the users of an open access database of court rulings, namely the Canadian Legal Information Institute’s website (www.CanLII.org). 

Collaboration is set within a framework that we name the « Collaboration Framework ». There are two classes of objects, users and documents, that interact following four relationships : links between documents, exchanges between users, writing (from users to documents) and consumption (from documents to users). In turn, we can better understand how collaboration functions, given a specific class of documents.

Following an analysis of court rulings as a system of documents and an illustration of user needs in civil society, the Collaboration Framework is applied to an open access database of court rulings in order to determine how users can enrich the system’s content.


This thesis was submitted to the 'Faculté des études supérieures' of the 'Université de Montréal' for the LL.M. degree, Information Technology Law option