Become a Skilled Investigator

• Sort fact from fiction, reality from fantasy, truth from lies
• Criminal Investigation
• Investigative journalist
• Biographer
• Academic, journalistic, anything else

Course Content

Nine lessons as follows:

1. Scope and Nature of Investigative Techniques
What is Investigation
Why Investigations are carried out
Who uses investigative skills
Important skills and traits
Personality traits - flexibility, self motivation, communication, active listening
How to be a good Active Listener
Observational skills - techniques to improve observation skills
Problem solving
Research skills
Interviewing
Critical thinking
Emotional and Social Intelligence
Empathy
Collective evidence
Courage
Investigative bodies - fraud, cybercrime3, missing persons
Professions -health, legal
International Investigative bodies - U.N., Interpol, Amnesty International

2. Records Searching
Record searching skills
Documents - superficial search, deeper search
Types of records -official, transitory
Why investigators carry out records searches
Conducting records searches
Offline searches
Online searches
Types of documents 
Primary documents - national identification numbers, public records
Secondary documents - print media

3. Surveillance
What is surveillance
Why carry out surveillance
Ethics of surveillance
Bias in surveillance
Surveillance methods
Types of surveillance - direct, pre-constructive, reconstructive
Physical surveillance - stakeout, mobile, aerial
Physical surveillance tips
Technical and electronic surveillance -fixed video, portable cameras, body cameras, motion detection, drones, audio recorders
GPS tracking, 
Facial recognition
Bugging & Cyber surveillance
Doing surveillance - pre planning, legal considerations, casing, knowing the subject

4. Interviewing
Interview skills
Interview versus interrogation
Why use interviews
Open and closed questions
Types of interviews
Advantages of interviews
Quantitative versus qualitative data
Limitations of interviews
Planning an interview -background information, Number of interviews, Gender, Time of day, Venue, keeping records
Designing an interview 
Setting goals examples - journalistic interview, criminal interview, academic interview
Choosing questions
Questions to avoid
Uncovering lies, fabrications, misleading responses
Gathering data

5. Surveys
What are surveys
Ethical issues
Survey Formats
The survey interview - face to face, telephone, focus groups, survey panels
Survey design
Research questions
Target Audience
Sampling, Administration, Analysis
Surveys as an investigative tool
Validity
Survey limitations

6. Analysis of Evidence
What is evidence
Analysing evidence
physical evidence -blood, fingerprint, DNA, impression evidence
Cyber or digital evidence
Behavioural evidence

7. Applications - Public Sector
What is the public sector
Public sector investigations -eg. fraud
People involved - whistle-blowers, moles, forensic accountants, ombudsmen, anti corruption watchdogs

8. Applications - Private Sector
The private sector
Private sector investigations
Discrimination
Overseas money trails
Embezzlement

9. Applications - Media and Online
Media and online investigations
Computer crimes
Common scams
The dark web
Online investigation techniques
Ways to deal with online and media crimes

Lesson Aims

• Define investigation and investigative techniques.
  
  
• Demonstrate record searching skills.
  
  
• Define surveillance and demonstrate surveillance techniques.
  
  
• Demonstrate interviewing skills.
  
  
• Define surveys and demonstrate their use.
  
  
• Describe evidence and types of evidence collected in investigations.
  
  
• Describe the applications of investigative techniques to the public sector.
  
  
• Describe private sector investigative techniques.
  
  
• Describe online and media-related investigations.