Selecting the best forensic report by using a group decision making method: A case study on three forensic reports

Abstract

Group decision making (GDM) techniques have been very popular to take the best and the most convenient decision from an alternative set. GDM techniques have been applied in various area of information sharing as well as forensic information sharing. In a forensic investigation process, different forensic reports are produced by different investigators. Produced forensic reports are taken to the court as a file of evidence however deciding which report should be taken to the court is a challenging. Because decision is single handed, officer makes decision. There are two main approaches s/he might follow in selection; the first one is to combine the forensic reports into one report if investigators are located in the same environment, the other one is to choose the most comprehensive report (individually decided). Both approaches may cause continuance by undue process because of insufficient evidence because reports which are not taken to the court might include the needed evidence. In order to solve such problems in forensic area, this work provides a consensus-reached GDM approach in which extended induced ordered weighted average technique is used. Three forensic master students' forensic reports are used for application of the work. The result of the application phase showed that consensus-reached GDM makes the taken decision better and more accurate.