The purpose of the Bureau of Justice Assistance sponsored project, “Student Computer Forensics and Digital Evidence Educational Opportunities Program”, is to develop a refined cybercrime investigation curricular for future law enforcement officers’ training. This project will provide students with the most comprehensive and reliable cybercrime investigation training available in regards to Computer Forensics and Digital Evidence Educational Training. In addition, this project also assists in providing students with internship opportunities within the areas of computer forensics and digital evidence. This will help to establish a corroborative approach, which can further promote the development and implementation of this training program.
Students
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Subsequent to receiving the BJA grant in mid-October, we reached out to experts in the cyber-field (Boston Police Department, FBI, DHS, Cybersecurity Professors from Utica/Boston University, etc.) and conducted a cybercrime expert focus group meeting on November 22, 2019. Within the meeting, we discussed the project summary, objectives, training/evaluation leadership team, program’s four courses, training/evaluation logistics, recruitment/focus group design for year one, program evaluation for year one and two (Pre/Posttests to measure student success, interviews, etc.) and sustainment plan for year two.
In greater detail, we discussed how the first semester would begin in Spring 2020 (Online) as a pilot program for targeting online students. Twenty qualified students from each Institution were selected as the first group and the participants were responsible for engaging in Pre-Posttests as well as interviews for program evaluation purposes. In efforts to conduct an overall assessment for the Student Computer Forensics and Digital Evidence Educational Opportunities Program, all students are required to participate in Four Pre-Post online surveys. For the interview, students will be chosen by randomly selecting core classes that all students are required to take, using the program SPSS seed function. Each student will have an equal chance of being assigned to an interview group.
BU (Graduate Level) Progress; December 1, 2019 – January 20, 2020
Subsequent to the expert-group meeting concluding, communication has continued between Boston University and Utica College. The PI and Co-PI (Dr. Lou Chitkushev and Dr. Kyung-Shick Choi) have worked on the major logistics of the BU certification program. They have met on Dec 20 and Jan 28. They also had a meeting with Co-PI from Utica College, Dr. Choo in efforts to update each Institution’s progress.
Participants’ class schedule was adjusted based on Four Core Courses. The CIC participants are subjected to complete the Four Core Courses below:
1.) Spring 1 2020 – Applied Digital Forensic Investigation (CJ)
2.) Spring 2 2020 – Digital Forensics (CS)
3.) Summer 1 2020 – Mobile Forensics (CS)
4.) Summer 2 2020 – Network Forensics (CS).
The second pilot group (in-person training student group) will start in Fall 2020. We will evaluate the student learning outcomes from each course and modify the curriculum as recommended.
Additionally, from December 01 until January 20, Boston University modified their course contents and developed labs. As of right now, the pretest for the first online course requirement (Applied Digital Forensic Investigation) was completed prior to the first day of classes which begun on January 21, 2020.
Utica (Undergraduate Level) Progress; December 1, 2019 – January 20, 2020
Since the kick-off expert focus group meeting at BU, we set up a steering committee consisting of 12 experts. The committee has worked on the certificate program development including program goals, course revision/development, curriculum map, and relevant core tasks. The committee met twice on Jan 06 and Jan 31. They are also scheduled to meet on Feb 07, 21, and 28. The committee will review and update current courses, and develop new courses and integrate them with current law enforcement training manuals. Their main meeting agenda included the following:
1. List of the steering committee members
● Andrew Carr, Supervisor, RSM’s DFIR
● Heather Charpentier, NY State Police
● Kyungseok Choo, Institutional Lead, Co-PI at UC
● Joe Giordano, Program Coordinator at UC
● Austen Givens, Associate Professor at UC
● Cynthia Gonnella, Booz Allen
● Dennis Labossiere, Senior Associate, KPMG US
● Anthony Martino, Director, NCFC
● Robert Price, Professor of Practice at UC
● Edin Selimovic, Utica Police Sargent
● Kevin Smith, Senior Consultant, Atlantic Data Forensics
● Steven Wood, US Army (Ret)
● Thomas Woodburn, Detective, Kings County DA
2. Program Development Plan
● New Certificate Program Development
∎ Program Goals
∎ Curriculum Map ∎ Final Course List
● Course Content Review
∎ Current Course Update/Revision
∎ Pre/Post Test Questionnaire
∎ Cyber Investigators Basic Training
∎ NIST Forensic Technique Guide and Tool Testing Program
● Internship or Co-Op Evaluation and Site Development
3. UC Undergraduate Certificate Program Goals
● Demonstrate an understanding of foundational computer forensics and digital evidence.
∎ Basic steps in forensic analysis (Collection, Examination, Analysis, and Reporting) related technical and non-technical areas.
● Demonstrate critical thinking, analytical performance capability, and writing skills related to computer forensics and digital evidence.
∎ How to perform technical analytics, write up and present results.
● Apply various digital forensics analysis tools related to computer forensics and digital evidence.
∎ Basics of computing, networking and security as well as various open source tools and how to apply them under different scenarios
● Apply the legal and ethical concepts to digital forensics.
4. List of Four Core Courses:
● CYB 355 Digital Investigations and Forensics I
● CYB 356 Digital Investigations and Forensics II
● CYB 455 Digital Investigations and Forensics III
● CYB 435 Mobile Device Forensics
5. Syllabus of the courses provided upon request
6. Outcome of the pre-test of CRJ 355 provided upon request
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