Experience of Incorporating NIST Standards in a Digital Forensics Curricula*

Abstract

Recently, Bowling Green State University (BGSU) has started to offer a Digital Forensics specialization program for Computer Science undergraduate students. We (the authors of this paper) actively took part in developing and evaluating the curricula for this program. The overarching goal of the specialization program is to build a digital forensics workforce for the state and the nation. Realizing the importance of standards of digital forensics tools in real-life forensic examinations, we made an effort to incorporate lessons on standardization in the curricula. In particular, so far we incorporated National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards for three digital forensics topics (Hardware Write Blocker, Deleted File Recovery, and Mobile Forensics) in the curricula. We faced many challenges over the journey but also attained some success. In this paper we share our experience to the community. We believe this account may be helpful to others who are about to begin such a journey.