Current Development Goals

Implement a sustainable software release process and schedule

Action: Develop release process and schedule (for software and documentation).

Action: Implement annual software update releases.

Improve user experience of BitCurator environment

Action: Determine which BitCurator tools are in most need of user testing through surveys or direct feedback from users.

Action: Schedule pilot usability tests with select members of the community to test key components of the BitCurator system.

Ensure data and tool outputs are able to interoperate with other systems and tools

Action: Evaluate outputs generated by BitCurator reports and toolsets and identify those whose outputs are not in machine-actionable text formats, such as XML, text, JSON, etc.

Action: Determine the feasibility of parsing existing tool output to a structured text format, looking for work that already might exist on blogs, GitHub, or StackOverflow.

Research increased functionality and support for working with files

Action: Inventory tools and utilities existing in the BitCurator environment and identify whether they work on disk images and/or individual files.

Action: Determine functionality gaps where tools for working with files don’t exist, and generate a plan to locate and/or develop tools to fit those needs.

Support software development by individual developers from member institutions

Action: Provide an official platform for individual/independent developers of open source digital forensics tools to promote or further develop their work.

Action: Officially recognize and reward products of development work through promotion on BCC communication channels and public programming.