BIRMINGHAM, AL — The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is scheduled to begin offering a graduate-level certificate in computer forensics for law enforcement professionals and for students pursuing master’s degrees in criminal justice, forensic science and computer and information science in the fall of 2006.

The certificate program will be housed jointly in the UAB School of Social and Behavioral Sciences’ Department of Justice Sciences and the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics’ Department of Computer and Information Sciences. The certificate program will focus on criminal justice, forensic science, computer network security and white-collar crime.

The sharp rise in the number of crimes committed with computers, such as the release of viruses and worms to disrupt computer networks and the illegal downloading of information, documents and copyrighted materials from Web sites and network servers, has created a need for trained computer forensics experts, said John Sloan, Ph.D., chairman of the Department of Justice Sciences. The computer forensics program at UAB will give students the skills to identify and respond to attacks on computer networks.

The 21-hour, category A certificate for graduate students was approved Friday, June 17, by the Board of Trustees for the University of Alabama System. UAB also will offer a category B certificate in computer forensics for non-degree seeking law enforcement professionals.