Foresight 20/20

The American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors (ASCLD) has received funding from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to develop software that will transfer data from forensic Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) to FORESIGHT, a business quantitative process tailored to forensic laboratories. The goal of the project, called FORESIGHT 20/20, will be to allow laboratories to easily upload business-relevant information from their individual LIMS to the FORESIGHT project, hosted at West Virginia University. FORESIGHT, in turn, will provide tailored quantitative reports and evaluations to the laboratories about their performance. NIJ has expressed interest in using FORESIGHT data for grant performance evaluations, making results comparable across laboratory systems. In short, this project will connect LIMS and FORESIGHT to benchmark forensic laboratory performance. Laboratories will be able to get information about their laboratory’s performance easier, the industry will have greater awareness of needs and allocations, and researchers can provide new insights into making the most of the profession’s resources.

The LIMS vendors specified in the project are JusticeTrax, PorterLee, StaCSDNA, and STARLIMS. Other vendors are welcome to engage the project. Once the software is developed, volunteer laboratories will alpha and beta test the software later in 2016 and in 2017. After the software is complete, a series of training events through varied media will be provided for laboratories to make best use of this new capability. The software will be free of charge and open source.

If your laboratory is interested in participating or you want more information on this project, please contact Max Houck (mmhouck -at- forensicintelligence.net).