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Monday, July 8, 2019

New Course Announcement

Today marks the beginning of a new era in our training business. I'm happy to announce that Introduction to Forensic Multimedia Analysis is now available on-line as micro learning.

What is Introduction to Forensic Multimedia Analysis? What does it cover?

This class serves as the entry point for those analysts involved in forensic image and video analysis, aka Forensic Multimedia Analysis. It features a detailed overview of the technological, legal, and personnel aspects of working with multimedia evidence in a forensic science setting. Graduates will acquire an introductory level education in the knowledge necessary to evaluate and analyze multimedia evidence in a forensic science setting. With an emphasis on standards compliance, students will also learn the best practices of reporting, packaging, delivering, and presenting their findings and evidence in the criminal / civil court context.

The curriculum is presented with strong emphasis on the work flow required to process this unique type of evidence. Beginning with the end in mind, each example is presented and students learn from the standpoint of an eventual testimonial experience.

In focusing on fundamental knowledge, the information in this course is not specific to any analysis platform or software solution.

Yes. That's right. Regardless of the tools you use, this class can help contextualize the work. It fills in the gaps that often happen with tool-specific training courses.

You've learned which buttons to press. You've learned how the tools work. Now learn the standards and the science behind the discipline. This knowledge - being able to answer "why" type questions, is essential on your career path as an analyst.

As an example, from the course's content, do you know the fundamental difference between the HSL and HSB colour spaces? HSL was designed to closely align with the way human vision perceives colour-making attributes. HSB was designed as a way to try to describe colour more intuitively than with RGB numbers. This level of detail will help you understand the tools that you use at a deeper level, as well as help flavour your testimony - proving plain meaning to industry jargon.

In the next few months, we'll be rolling out other courses in our online portal ... starting with Introduction to Image Authentication. Then, we'll bring out our offerings around the Amped and Adobe tools, followed by deep dives into some of the more popular freeware tools, like ffmpeg.

Here's why:

Many who have been given the task to work on this incredibly valuable evidence type live in states that restrict travel. Others work in cities, counties, and states with budget problems. Traveling to training thus becomes a problem. For every dollar spent on training, two or more dollars must be spent on logistics. That formula isn't sustainable.

Often times, analysts in small towns are disadvantaged as they lack the funds to travel and they lack the population density to attract a training company to their location. Additionally, many municipalities have strict rules prohibiting private companies from profiting off of government resources (no more trading seats for space). Some training companies have thresholds of attendance that must be met in order to hold the training. Signing up, only to have the class cancelled a few weeks out, can cause chaos with your training office.

Another issue that our learning portal solves is the disparity between public and private labs in terms of training opportunities. The majority of training classes are held at government / law enforcement facilities and restricted to those types of employees.  Thus, how are those in private practice supposed to train? With us, they can. Everyone can. Remember, there really are no "sides" in science. We all serve the Trier of Fact in interpreting, analyzing, and explaining the issues around this vital type of evidence.

We've worked hard to check all of the boxes in delivering these offerings to you:

  • Affordable
  • Convenient
  • Relevant
  • Feature Packed
Our introductory education courses are priced below $500. This means that approvals will be easier. This means that you can likely justify the expense and use your purchase card to sign up for classes. Also, given the nature of on-line micro learning, this course is priced to be affordable wherever in the world you happen to be.

Yes, we've designed the course with the world in mind. So many courses are designed with a specific country's context informing the development. We've blended relevant standards and procedural information from Australia, Canada, India, Europe, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdon, and the US ... as well as international standards from the ASTM the world wide working groups.

Having a world wide context, and a platform available on all major device types (even iOS and Android), makes this course ... and all of our courses ... incredibly convenient.

As for relevance, we're filling in the gaps and providing context to what you may already know. We're diving deeper than you've likely gone before. We're setting the scientific foundation for the work. Given that forensic science is the systematic and coherent study of traces to address questions of authentication, identification, classification, reconstruction, and evaluation for a legal context, this course presents the system and leads the way to a coherent study of traces to address the questions that come up in your inquiries. It will provide valuable information and knowledge that will help you make sense of the tools and processes used in this complex discipline.

The course is presented as a 16 hour experience - meaning this course would normally fill two full days of instruction. But, with the use of interactive text, you can dive as deep into topics as you desire. If you dive deep on all topics in the course, this course expands to beyond 40 traditional classroom hours of instruction. As a self-directed learner, the choice is yours.

The beauty of micro learning is that you learn at your own pace and on your own schedule. All too often, the "death by Powerpoint" section of class puts students to sleep. In sleeping through the lessons, they miss vital information. Micro learning lets you explore topics in depth, or in small bites, as your schedule and energy level permits. Once enrolled, you have 60 days to complete the course.

I invite you to examine the syllabus for this course. Then, please click over to the web site and sign up. I look forward to seeing you in class.


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