Digital Detectives

Investigating Cybercrime

THE BRIEF

Why did we need information?

– Provide a conference presentation to OU students and prospective students to introduce them to resources and research methods on the issue of cybercrime

See our links to Being Digital activities.

They cover the skills we all need to be effective online.

PLANNING THE SEARCH

What did we already know? Details of the brief:

1. Internet crime exists in different forms

2. Identity theft is one form

3. Different viewpoints of the topic

• criminal

• victim

• media

• crime detectors and controllers,

• government and financial institutions

DEFINING INFORMATION NEEDS

What did we need to know?

• Definitions related to cyber crime

• Descriptions or profiles of cyber criminals and the types of crime

• Real life examples of cyber crime

• Expert evidence – case studies, reports, statistics

CREATING A SEARCH STRATEGY

What were we searching for? A starting point:

• “cyber crime” OR cybercrime OR cyber-crime

• “cyber criminals”

• “identity theft” AND online AND .uk

• What other terms would be helpful?Being Digital: Effective searching

DEFINING INFORMATION NEEDS

What type of information did we need? • News

• Ideas and opinions

• Research results

• Facts and figures

• History or background

• Personal experience

• Advice or help

• Legal information

Being Digital: The information universe

INFORMATION SOURCES

Where could we look?

• Reference sources – subject dictionaries, handbooks

• Library databases

• Journal articles

• Open access resources on Library website

• Newspapers

• Agency websites

• BlogsBeing Digital: Exploring library resources Keeping up-to-date

EVALUATING WEBSITES

Always ask WWW – who, why and when

• Who put the site there (who owns the site)?

• Why did they create the site?

• When was the site last updated?

Being Digital: Filtering information quickly

CAN WE TRUST OUR SOURCES?

Credibility

Agenda

Need

Being Digital: Deciding what to trust online Deciding who to trust online

DIGGING DEEPER

Use the PROMPT test for all information

• Presentation

• Relevance

• Objectivity

• Method

• Provenance

• Timeliness

Being Digital: Evaluation using PROMPT

ACKNOWLEDGING OUR SOURCES

For every resource we used we needed to ensure that we acknowledged the sources we used.

We avoided plagiarism by using our own words, except when quoting directly, and we cited our sources.

You can find all of our references on our#libcyber BibSonomy

Being Digital: Introduction to referencing Avoiding Plagiarism

BEING DIGITAL

Here are some other activities you may find useful.

What is the online library?

Getting started with the online library

Finding information for your assignment

My digital identity