Special Collections and University Archives is proud to host this course from the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The field of digital forensics often evokes imagery of prime-time television crime dramas. But what is it, and how can archivists put digital forensics tools and processes to use in their home institutions? Archivists are more likely than ever to be confronted with collections containing removable storage media (e.g., floppy disks, hard drives, thumb drives, memory sticks, and CDs). These media provide limited accessibility and may endanger the electronic records housed within, due to obsolescence and loss over time. Caring for these records requires archivists to extract whatever useful information resides on the medium while avoiding the accidental alteration of data or metadata.

 You’ll explore the layers of hardware and software that allow bitstreams on digital media to be read as files, the roles and relationships of these layers, and tools and techniques for ensuring the completeness and evidential value of data.

Advanced registration for this course is required.