Fact-Finding and Documentation

Are you a human rights professional or a social activist or a student seeking to acquire or strengthen your skills of fact-finding and documentation to protect human rights?

This course will help you in your quest!

What will you get from this course?

Very briefly, the course provides an overview of the importance of fact-finding in human rights work, discusses the application of human rights standards in fact-finding and documentation, and reviews the main aspects of fact-finding such as identifying sources of information, standards of gathering evidence, collecting information from victims and witnesses. It also reviews the challenges in fact-finding work. Lastly, the course discusses the basics of information recording and digital security.

How is the course taught?

The course is taught using the following:

• Lectures, with lots of examples to help you connect

• Questions for reflection

• Case studies

• Practice exercises based on case studies

• Role play

• Lesson-end quiz

What else do you get?

This course is a basic study on fact-finding and documentation, hence each component discussed in this course needs further in-depth inquiry and learning. Therefore, it is likely you will have clarifications and questions. Simply post your questions and the instructor will respond to them promptly.

If all this sounds exciting to you, then get ready to add this course to your cart and make it a part of your knowledge-acquiring journey – ‘knowledge’ that you can put into action for a better world!

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Content and Overview

This course is divided into seven lessons:

1. Lesson 1: Importance of Fact-Finding in Human Rights Work – This lesson reviews the importance of fact-finding in human rights work, examines the purpose of fact-finding, reviews the principles governing fact-finding, and provides an overview of the methods of information collection.

   
   

2. Lesson 2: Application of Human Rights Standards – This lesson discusses the use of human rights standards in fact-finding and documentation work. It discusses why one should use human rights standards and the nature of human rights standards that should be applied.

   
   

3. Lesson 3: Sources of information and Standards of Gathering Evidence – This lesson explains about identifying sources of information, the level of proof that is to be maintained in fact-finding, and the method of cross checking information through corroboration.

   
   

4. Lesson 4: Steps in Collection of Information from Victims and Witnesses – This lesson discusses the basics of collecting information from victims and witnesses through conducting interviews. It also reviews the elements involved in interviewing, and the challenges faced in interviewing victims/witnesses. Along with, the lesson reviews a role play on interviewing skills.

   
   

5. Lesson 5: Clarifying the Challenges Involved in Information Collection – This lesson reflects upon some challenges of information collection and the strategies for mitigating such challenges.

   
   

6. Lesson 6: Recording of Information – This lesson examines the importance of recording information and the points to keep in mind while developing standard formats for recording information. The lesson also covers the aspects of controlled vocabularies and information retrieval.

   
   

7. Lesson 7: Digital Security – The concluding lesson lists and explains the secure methods of storing and communicating sensitive information relating to human rights.