Science is often described as a self-correcting body of knowledge. With each question that is answered, we refine our prior theories and our understanding of the natural world increases. With each question answered, we also discover new questions we hadn’t even thought to ask. The quest for knowledge is never ending.
Of course, forensic science shares these same characteristics. This Journal seeks to advance forensic science by publishing original works for the benefit of the entire forensic community.
To aid in this goal, we are asking all of you to consider some of the problems you have seen in your everyday work. Perhaps a troubling dilemma encountered on a real crime scene that you have not had time to fully explore. Maybe a loose end from an old research project you would like to see resolved.
Ideally, we would love to see you pursue research to answer those questions and encourage you to do so. Unfortunately, most of us are already swamped with other duties and often lack the time to invest in our own research ideas. Meanwhile there are those, including students, who have the time and motivated to conduct research, but lack a good starting point. The Journal would like to begin a project to bring these two factors together. By collecting and posting our collective research ideas to the ACSR membership, we engage everyone in two very important aspects of the advancement of crime scene reconstruction. First, we will all be helping to define where research is lacking. Second, by making that information accessible to the entire membership we encourage others to pursue those answers while at the same time focusing our efforts on the most important problems.
Please collect your thoughts and send in those research ideas to the Editor at editor@acsr.org or head over the ACSR Forum area and share your thoughts with the group. You can send in something as simple as an unanswered forensic question you believe deserves research to a well thought out research plan you lack the time or resources to complete. The Journal will make those project ideas accessible to the membership and hopefully we can get some answers for everyone.