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COIT20267 Computer Forensics
Assessment Specification
Comparative Study
Due date: ASSESSMENT
Weighting:
Length: 1
23:45:00 AEST Week 6 Friday
35%
3,000 words Report.
Objectives
This assignment is designed to encourage the development of ability to apply a systematic approach in
a digital investigation through the conduct of computer forensics procedures and the use of computer
forensics tools, and to encourage the ability to identify the legal issues involved in a computer forensic
investigation across jurisdictions. Please refer to the unit profile to see how this assessment item relates
to the unit learning outcomes.
General Assessment Criteria
Incomprehensible submissions. Assessments provide the opportunity for studentsto demonstrate their
knowledge and skills to achieve the required standard. To do this, assessment responses need to be both
clear and easy to understand. If not, the University cannot determine that students have demonstrated
their knowledge and skills. Assessments will, therefore, be marked accordingly including the potential
for 0 (zero) marks where relevant.
Late penalty. Late submissions will attract penalties at 5% for each calendar day or part thereof that it
is late of the total available mark for the individual assessment item. This means that, for an assessment
worth 35 marks, the mark that you earn is reduced by 1.75 marks each calendar day that the assessment
is late (including part-days and weekends). See s4.58 in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher
Education Coursework).
Check with marking criteria. Before submitting your assignment, you should check it against the
assessment criteria included in this specification to ensure that you have satisfactorily addressed all the
criteria that will be used to mark your assignment.
Academic language. All submissions should be thoroughly proof-read for spelling, typographical or
grammatical errors before being submitted. Do not rely on the ‘spell-check’ function in your word
processing program. If, for example, ‘affect’ is substituted for ‘effect’, your program may not detect the
error.
Academic Integrity
All assignments will be checked for plagiarism (material copied from other students and/or material
copied from other sources) using TurnItIn (TII). If you are found to have plagiarised material or if you
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have used someone else’s words without appropriate referencing, you will be penalised for plagiarism
which could result in zero marks for the whole assignment. In some circumstances a more severe
penalty may be imposed. The link to the University’s Academic Misconduct Procedures is available in
the unit profile.
Useful information about academic integrity (avoiding plagiarism) can be found at: CQUniversity
referencing guides
https://www.cqu.edu.au/student-life/services-and-facilities/referencing/cquniversity-referencingguides
Submission requirements
Who to submit? If students work in a group, then only one of the group members needs to submit
for the entire group.
What to submit? It should only be in MS Word format (.doc or .docx).
No Zipped files. Students must NOT zip multiple files and must NOT compress any files (e.g. using
zip, rar). Submit the individual PowerPoint and Word files only.
Means of submission. All assignments must be submitted electronically to Moodle. The submission
links can be accessed through the Assessment block on the Moodle unit website. Physical copies/
Email submissions are not accepted.
Auto-submission. Moodle implements an auto-submission process for those items uploaded and left
as drafts before the original deadline. However, any assessments uploaded after the original deadline
must be manually submitted by the students.
Please note that auto-submission process does not work for assessments which have extensions. Auto
submission only works where the original deadline of an assessment has not changed. If you are
submitting after the deadline (original or extended), you must complete the Moodle submission
process. Further details on completing the submission process are available via the ‘Moodle Help for
Students’ link in the SUPPORT block of your Moodle pages.
Warning. Having said that, however, you should not completely rely on Moodle’s auto-submission
functionality because it has not been proved to be reliable in the past. Each student should make sure
they submit their assignment before the deadline by manually clicking on the submission button.
Complete and correct submission. Requests for changing files after the submission deadline may be
granted if the Unit Coordinator is contacted. However, if a change of files is allowed by the Unit
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Coordinator, then the submission time will be taken as the latest time (i.e. when the last update is made),
not the original submission time. That will result in a late penalty.
Comparative Study on Forensics Tools
Group/Individual assignment. Students may work as a group or individually. Any student who
wishes to work in a group need to read the Group formation and registration guidelines provided in
this document.
Instructions. The aim of this assignment is to improve your industry-based practical research skills as
well as to deepen your understanding of common forensic tools and how they are applicable to reallife problems. You need to research one recent (<5 years) crime and/or misconduct that requires
computer forensics, such as (but not limited to) murder, kidnap, drug trafficking, intellectual
property theft, industrial espionage, employment disputes, fraud, forgeries, inappropriate email and
internet use in the work place. For the purpose of this assignment, you need to:
1. Provide a detailed description of the case, i.e. what happened?
2. Report who were involved in the crime, i.e. who were the criminal(s), suspect(s) and the
victim(s)?
3. Report or infer the motivation and criminal purpose, i.e. what were the sinister aims that the
criminal(s) intended to achieve;
4. Identify and report what type of evidences were used in the criminal investigation of the case;
5. Report or identify, based on the face of the evidence, the type of the attack(s);
6. Identify which forensic tool(s) was/were used in this case
7. Discuss how it has affected the victim(s) and any consequences of the crime;
8. Report what the criminal punishment was, if any;
9. Report any other aspects of the case you would like to discuss, e.g. which court(s) had the
jurisdiction? i.e. this case should/can be heard at which court. In your discussion, you need to
a. Critically evaluate the forensic tool(s) and discuss their capacity in various categories
of functions, including acquisition, validation and verification, extraction,
reconstruction and reporting;
b. Justify the selection of that/those specific tools over other tools;
c. Discuss how computer forensic experts made use of the nominated tools in the criminal
investigation of the case you presented.
The report needs to be 3,000 words in length with 10% leeway on either side, excluding title page,
table of contents and references list.
Specifically, your report should include the following.
1. Title page: (each) student name (in your group), (each) student number (in your group), (each)
student email address (in your group, use CQU email), title of your report, local lecturer/tutor, and
unit coordinator. Not counted towards the word count.Executive summary: Should be
approximately 300 words.
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2. Table of Contents (ToC): Should list the report sub-sections in decimal notation and should be
autogenerated. Not counted towards the word count.
3. Introduction: Provide the main points of the assignment.
4. Body of the report: Appropriate headings in the body of the report should be used.
5. Conclusion: Summarise the key findings.
6. Reference list: All references must be in Harvard Referencing Style. Not counted towards the word
count.
Marking Criteria
1- Case Report (10 marks)
a. Provide detailed description of the case (3 marks)
b. Report who were involved in the crime (2 marks)
c. Motivation and criminal purpose (1 mark)
d. Type of evidences (2 marks)
e. Type of the attack (1 mark)
f. Consequences and criminal punishment (1 mark)
2- Forensic tools (20 marks)
a. Evaluation of forensic tools (5 marks)
b. Justification of selected tools (5 marks)
c. Usage of forensic tools (5 marks)
d. Future trends of forensic tools (5 marks)
3- Quality of report (5 marks)
a. Structure of the report (1 mark)
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b. Using correct expressions, grammar, spelling and punctuation (2
marks)
c. References (in-text references and the reference list) (2 marks)
Deductions
– Incomprehensible English (up to 35 marks)
If the report is unable to be read and understood by the marker, the marker may impose a penalty up to
35 marks to this assessment.
– Late penalty (up to 35 marks)
In the absence of an extension, the marker will impose late penalty at 1.75 marks for each calendar day
or part thereof that the assignment is overdue.
COIT20267 Computer Forensics
Group Formation, Registration and Administration
Guidelines
For on-campus students, 80% of the assessments are group assignment in this unit. To ensure your
success in this unit, please read and follow these guidelines regarding group formation, registration and
administration.
Formation
Group size. Each group consists of 2 or 3 students. Groups of more than 3 students must be split into
two or more groups. Given the amount of work students need to undertake in Assessment 2 and 3, it is
highly suggested that student form a group of 3 students. Students may be added by the local
tutor/lecturer to groups that consists of less than 3 students in Week 3.
Inter-tutorial groups. Students must form groups within the tutorial group that they are enrolled in.
No inter-tutorial groups are allowed.
Stay in the same group. Students must stay in the same group for both the first and the second
assessment.
Freedom to form groups before the deadline. Subject to the provisions in this document, students
have the freedom to choose their group members before the registration deadline. After the registration
deadline, however, those who are not in a group will be allocated to a group by the localtutor/lecturer.
Group Charter. A sample Group Charter has been attached to this document in Schedule 1. The Group
Charter is an instrument to help establish team roles, cohesion and on time delivery while minimising
potential conflicts. Members should agree on the elements and establish ground rules at the time of the
formation of your group.
Registration
Deadline. The deadline for group registration is 11:45pm AEST Friday Week 3.
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Penalty for not registering before the deadline. Students who have not registered before the deadline
receive no penalty on their marks; they will, however, lose the freedom to form a group on their own.
Local lecturers/tutors will assign them into a group.
Means of registration. To register your group, students must send their local tutor an email with
“[COIT20267] Group Registration” in the subject line. In the body of that email, students must list out
the name and their student ID for each member in their group. The registration email must arrive at their
tutor’s inbox before the registration deadline to be constituted as a valid registration.
Administration
Conflicts. The Group Charter will help you to establish rules and procedures to resolve conflicts within
your group. If there is anything that you think you will need to involve your tutor/lecturer, please do not
hesitate to do so.
Burden to prove. If you make any allegation against any other group members, you bear the evidential
onus to prove your allegation.
Group marks. Everyone in the same group will receive the same mark unless:
(1) there is any issue brought to the attention of the tutor and
(2) the tutor finds it is fundamentally unfair to give every group member the same mark.
Students may be removed from a group. In some circumstances, students may be removed from their
group due to their significant lack of contribution. Once it happens, students being removed from a
group will need to undertake all assessment individually from the time they are removed. The marking
standard and criteria will remain the same.
Schedule 1. A sample Group Charter
This is a sample Group Charter; to register your group, please use the “Group Formation Registration
Form” which is available in weeks 1 to 3 materials.
Group Details
Aiming marks: HD/D/C/P/F Group
established date/week:
Group leader:
Group member details:
Student Name Student ID Contact Details Comments
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Communication Plan/Requirement
Communication method: CQU Email / Text Message / Phone Call / Whatsapp / Facebook / WeChat /
Others:
Group communication frequency and relevant details:
Deemed Receipt Time. The deemed receipt time is the time that the message is able to be retrieved
from the server, that is, in case of email, it is the time when the email arrives at your inbox; in case of
text message, it is the time you receive that message.
Expected Response Time. All group members must reply emails within 48 hours of the deemed receipt
time; and must reply text messages within 24 hours of the deemed receipt time.
If any group member does not reply to emails/phone calls/text messages, we will take the following
steps to resolve this matter:
1.
2.
3.
Meeting Plan/Requirements Meeting
Methods/locations:
Meeting Frequency and length:
Excuses. The following are not recognised as valid excuses in this group to be absent from a scheduled
group meeting.
1. I live very far from the city and it is very inconvenient for me to travel to theUniversity.
2. I have got part time job, and cannot make it to the group meeting.
3. …
4. …
Group Member Responsibilities
1. How will the members ensure overall fairness and respect within the group?
2. How will the group ensure fairness and equity in assessment task allocation?
3. What if a member does not agree with the task allocation or other group decisions?
4. How will the group ensure on time delivery of tasks by the group members?
5. What is the process to ensure quality control of tasks?
6. What will the group do if one or more members do not meet deadlines and/or continues to provide
less effort on a regular basis (e.g. lateness to meetings, not enough attention, missing task
deadlines)?
7. What are the penalties for non-compliance with requirements as in point 7 above?
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8. How will the group consider one-off individual emergency situations?
9. What is the mechanism to resolve issues within the group?
10. What is the mechanism to escalate issues if they cannot be resolved within the group?
11. What will the members do if they don’t agree with the group leadership?
Agreement Details
Student name Signature Date

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