Newswise — RTI International has been awarded a two-year cooperative agreement by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to develop and deliver Web-based continuing education for forensic science professionals.
The goals of the project are to provide high quality, Web-based, interactive continuing education for professions in the field of forensics, provide a cost efficient means for institutions and individuals to meet their continuing education needs, and to continuously evaluate the needs of forensic science professionals. Forensic science is a broad field that consists of many disciplines, including toxicology, pathology, anthropology, and criminalistics, which includes drug chemistries, ballistics, trace evidence, and biological specimens, including DNA, firearms, and crime scene investigation.
Rapidly changing technology and laboratory procedures have created a large continuing education need in the forensic science community; however, many forensic science professionals find it difficult to maintain continuing education requirements due to budget constraints and heavy caseloads.
This project will address this need by developing continuing education training modules on forensic science topics which will be delivered via the World Wide Web. The training modules will be available as both live, virtual classrooms led by a subject matter expert and on-demand, self-paced training using archived subject matter. These training modules will be provided to the end users at no cost for the period of the project to serve the forensic science community.
"Providing easily accessible continuing education is a big challenge currently in the forensic science community," said Peter Stout, a senior research forensic scientist at RTI and the project's co-principal investigator. "This project is a great opportunity to address this challenge by leveraging the time and space reduction capability of the World Wide Web."
The project is a joint effort between RTI's Center for Forensic Science unit and its Crime, Violence, and Justice Research Program, which have successfully collaborated on previous NIJ projects.
"One of RTI's main strengths, from the client's point of view, in the area of forensic science is our multi-disciplinary approach, which blends forensic science with social science and allows us to approach these problems from multiple perspectives," said Jeri Miller, a senior research analytical forensic toxicologist at RTI and the project's co-principal investigator.
For more information on this study visit the project Web site, http://www.rti.org/forensiced.
About RTI International RTI International is one of the world's leading research institutes, dedicated to improving the human condition by turning knowledge into practice. With projects in more than 40 countries and a staff of more than 2,600, RTI offers innovative research and technical solutions to governments and businesses worldwide in the areas of health and pharmaceuticals, education and training, surveys and statistics, advanced technology, democratic governance, economic and social development, energy, and the environment. For more information, visit www.rti.org.
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