AcademyTrack XIII
Collection and Verification
Preserve first. Then find out whether it is what it says it is.
Faculty
Berkeley Protocol
UN OHCHR and the Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law
Digital open source investigation: lifecycle, preservation, verification, ethics
Used as the methodological standard for the collection and verification material. The Protocol is written for investigations into serious violations of international law; this site teaches its method at a civilian scale and does not claim its authority.
Following a professional protocol does not make an investigator an accredited one, and does not make findings admissible anywhere.
Faculty
Bellingcat
Stichting Bellingcat
Open source verification, geolocation, chronolocation, published methodology
Taught as published method: the techniques and the editorial standard, including the requirement that outside readers can reproduce the work. Specific investigations are referenced only as demonstrations of technique.
Reproducible method is the claim being taught. Any particular investigation's conclusions are that organization's, not this site's.
Faculty
Richards J. Heuer Jr.
CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence
Structured analytic techniques
Taught as published method: a reasoning discipline any investigator can adopt. Nothing about the institution that published the book is endorsed or defended here.