Mrs Elizabeth Hardie

Professional biography

Liz is the Director of SCiLAB, the Scholarship Centre for Innovation in online Legal and Business Education for the Faculty of Business and Law. She is also a senior lecturer in the law school, and an Associate Lecturer tutoring a variety of law modules.

Liz has worked for the law school since 2006, initially as an Associate Lecturer, from 2010 as a Student Experience Manager, from 2020 as Teaching Director and from 2023 as senior lecturer. As Teaching Director she led the introduction of the OU's new LLB from 2021 - 2023.

Prior to joining the law school Liz was a practicing solicitor in the areas of family law and employment law.

Research interests

Liz is interested in the pedagogy of teaching, particularly teaching online. She is currently carrying out research in online clinical legal education, online student support (including peer mentoring and encouraging a sense of belonging to an online academic community ) and the impact of Generative AI on teaching and learning, and access to justice.

Liz is the principal investigator on a project funded by NCFE’s Assessment Innovation Fund: Developing Robust Assessment in the Light of Generative AI Developments. She is co-investigator on a responsible AI UK funded project on AI, Law and Legal training. 

Teaching interests

Liz is the academic lead for scholarship and staff development within the Faculty of Business and Law. She also leads the online family law clinic which is part of the Open Justice Centre, and is a member of the module team for W360 Justice in Action. Liz co-leads the Law School's Belonging Project and is part of the Law School's peer mentoring project team. She is an academic representative on the OU's Steering Group for Generative AI.

As a tutor Liz has taught a variety of different modules including first year undergraduate introductory modules, second year and third year modules. She currently tutors on W230 Family Law and W360 Justice in Action.

Liz won two OU Teaching Excellence awards in 2024, one for the production of the new LLB (team award) and one for the Open Justice Centre (team award). The Law School Belonging Project was also highly commended.