Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Knowledge in Command and Control Organizations

Abstract : Virtual environments for command and control typically represent spatial information about entities, such as the location of friendly and enemy forces. Iconography and interaction standards for such displays are well defined. Less attention has been paid to representing non-geographical information, such as information about the state of knowledge and decision making in a command staff. We report here on two technologies designed to enable commanders to measure, monitor, and manage knowledge and decision making. The IMAGES tool (now under development) exploits communication and language analysis technologies as well as network visualization techniques to help commanders explore the distribution of knowledge in written communications (e.g., chat and email). The CENTER tool (now implemented) exploits a theory of collaborative critical thinking for representing the state of decision making within distributed teams. Here, we describe challenge, requirements, and two solutions for measuring, monitoring, and managing knowledge using virtual environments in command and control operations.