Supporting Forensic Design - A Course Profile to Teach Forensics

Abstract

There is a growing demand for experts with a dedicated knowledge of forensics, especially in the domain of digital and digitised forensics, besides a general shortage of teaching of digital forensics. Further, there is prominent lack of standardisation in designing a curriculum [18]. We address this by offering the profile ForensikDesign@Informatik [23] to the bachelor's degree at university level. By teaching digital and digitised forensics, we propose a model-based approach combining the practitioners and the computer scientist's view [19], also to address the standardisation issue. We identify three main application areas: teaching conventional digital forensic examinations using existing tools and methods following the model-based approach, the design of new forensic tools and methods and the system design to achieve a desired degree of forensic readiness in the conflict field of a degree of anonymity. The last two application areas, we believe, also justify teaching at university level. We set an international focus, and highlight the science part of forensic sciences. Selected law aspects are addressed both for motivational and comparative purposes. We implement different teaching strategies and provide dedicated resources (technical, organisational and personnel). Finally, we outline the two options for the profile ForensikDesign@Informatik, depending on the effort of commitment by the students.