Sharik 1.0: The Design and Development of a Web-Based Tool ...Sharik 1.0: The Design and Development of a Web-Based Tool to Support Collaborative Sensemaking Shadi Ghajar-Khosravi

Sharik 1.0: The Design and Development of a Web-Based Tool to Support Collaborative Sensemaking

Shadi Ghajar-Khosravi Peter Kwantes DRDC – Toronto Research Centre

Defence Research and Development Canada Scientific Report

DRDC-RDDC-2016-R058

April 2016

IMPORTANT INFORMATIVE STATEMENTS This work is being carried out at Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) under project 05da: JICAC (Joint Intelligence Collection and Analysis Capability) within the Joint Force Development (JFD) S&T portfolio.

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© Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, as represented by the Minister of National Defence, 2016

© Sa Majesté la Reine (en droit du Canada), telle que représentée par le ministre de la Défense nationale, 2016

DRDC-RDDC-2016-R058 i

Abstract

All-source analysts collaborate with each other on various information requirements. They receive different types of information from various collators, integrate and relate those information items to produce intelligence, and then share the new intelligence items with their peers. In this report, the authors describe Sharik (SHAring Resources, Information, and Knowledge), a web-based tool aimed at supporting collaborative sensemaking among all-source intelligence analysts in distributed command and control centers. The primary goal of this tool is to support analysts in producing, and more importantly sharing, new intelligence pieces with their teammates while retaining a high situational awareness of the intelligence production’s status.

Significance to Defence and Security

Analysts are continuously dealing with larger amounts of information to review, analyse, and extract intelligence from. A wide range of solutions is proposed for tackling this information overload issue, including various analytic tools supporting analysts’ analyses. On a different spectrum, another solution would be facilitating collaboration and sensemaking among teams of analysts working together on a common mission with the ultimate goal of improving efficiency and reducing redundancy in intelligence analysis activities. Hence, the tool described in this report was designed to support collaborative sensemaking among intelligence analysts.

This work is being carried out at Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) under project 05da: JICAC (Joint Intelligence Collection and Analysis Capability) within the Joint Force Development (JFD) S&T portfolio. The JICAC project is being run as a collaboration between DRDC’s Valcartier and Toronto Research Centres, and aims to provide the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) with tools, techniques, and advice for procurement to reduce the amount of time all-source intelligence analysts must search for information, and maximise the amount of time they can spend doing analysis.

ii DRDC-RDDC-2016-R058

Résumé

Les analystes toutes sources collaborent entre eux afin de répondre à divers besoins en matière d’information. Ils reçoivent et intègrent divers types d’information de différents compilateurs et établissent des liens entre les éléments d’information pour en obtenir du renseignement dont ils partageront ensuite les éléments avec leurs pairs. Dans ce rapport, les auteurs décrivent Sharik (SHAring Resources, Information and Knowledge, soit le partage des ressources, de l’information et des connaissances), un outil Web qui facilite le raisonnement collaboratif chez les analystes du renseignement toutes sources disséminés dans les centres de commandement et contrôle. L’objectif principal de cet outil est d’aider les analystes à produire, certes, mais surtout à partager de nouveaux éléments de renseignement avec leurs coéquipiers, tout en conservant une connaissance élevée de la situation quant à l’état de la production de renseignement.

Importance pour la défense et la sécurité

Le volume d’information que les analystes doivent examiner et analyser afin d’en extraire du renseignement augmente sans cesse. Par conséquent, il existe un vaste éventail de moyens de s’attaquer à ce problème de surabondance d’information, dont divers outils d’analyse. Or, il existe également un autre moyen qui permettrait de faciliter la collaboration et le raisonnement au sein d’équipes d’analystes travaillant ensemble dans le cadre d'une mission commune dont l’objectif ultime est d’améliorer l’efficacité et de réduire la redondance des activités d’analyse du renseignement. L’outil décrit dans ce rapport a été conçu afin d’appuyer le raisonnement collaboratif chez les analystes du renseignement.

Ce travail se déroule à Recherche et développement pour la défense Canada (RDDC) dans le cadre du projet 05da: JICAC (Collecte de renseignements interarmées et de capacité d’analyse) du portefeuille de S & T du Développement de la force interarmées (DFI). Les centres de recherches de Valcartier et de Toronto collaborent à ce projet qui vise à fournir aux Forces armées canadiennes (FAC) des outils, des techniques et des conseils en matière d’approvisionnement afin de réduire le temps que les analystes du renseignement toutes sources doivent passer à rechercher de l’information et de maximiser celui qu’ils peuvent consacrer à l’analyse.

DRDC-RDDC-2016-R058 iii

Table of Contents

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Significance to Defence and Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Résumé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Importance pour la défense et la sécurité . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.1 Intelligence Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.2 Scope Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.3 Intended Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.4 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2.4.1 Information Pool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.4.2 Project Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.4.3 Stored Content Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3 Features Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3.1 Home Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3.2 Project’s Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3.3 INT Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 3.4 Entity Wikis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.5 Propositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3.6 Concept Maps (Cmap) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3.7 Commenting and Messaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3.8 Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 3.9 Content Subscriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 3.10 File Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

4 Future Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

List of Symbols/Abbreviations/Acronyms/Initialisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

iv DRDC-RDDC-2016-R058

List of Figures

Figure 1: The intelligence cycle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Figure 2: Content types designed for intelligence analysis procedures and practices (arrows represent the flow of information). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Figure 3: Sharik’s Home Page for logged-in users. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Figure 4: “Jason Bourne” project’s space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Figure 5: A note’s full page view in an overlay display on top of project’s space. . . . . 9

Figure 6: Field-based data entry approach for adding new Notes to the project. (a) The left panel on project’s space with “Add New Note” button. (b) The Field-based data entry for Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Figure 7: Word document Macro. (a) User selects a line of text and clicks on the macro’s icon. (b) The macro function highlights the selected text, copies the selected text along with the file path into clipboard, and then saves the Word file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Figure 8: Adding a new note using Snippet format. (a) User pastes the text that was copied by Word macro. (b) User attaches the note to an existing relevant proposition (optional). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Figure 9: The new note is added to the project’s space. The title of the note is created automatically using the first few words of the text snippet. . . . . . . . . 12

Figure 10: The entity wikis tab under project’s space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Figure 11: The full view of Jason Bourne’s wiki page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Figure 12: Field-based data entry approach for adding new propositions to project. (a) The left panel on a project’s space (See Figure 4) containing “Add New proposition” button. (b) The Field-based data entry approach for adding new propositions to the system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Figure 13: Command-based approach for adding new propositions to a project: (a) The left panel on project’s space containing the command line text field, (b) The new proposition is added to the list of propositions after submitting the command. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Figure 14: Tile view display of propositions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Figure 15: Table view of propositions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Figure 16: Tile view of propositions filtered by linking phrase type (only “extract” propositions are displayed here). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Figure 17: The Cmap visualization of all the propositions that belong to the Jason Bourne project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

DRDC-RDDC-2016-R058 v

Figure 18: The details of the proposition “Jason Bourne lived in Paris” is displayed at the bottom of the Cmap panel after user clicks on the linking phrase “Lived in” on the Cmap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Figure 19: Cmap’s propositions are filtered based on the type of the linking phrases (only “extract” propositions are displayed here). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Figure 20: Two comments submitted about a proposition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Figure 21: The right-hand side of the top menu bar being displayed on top of all Sharik pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Figure 22: The right panel of each project’s space contains a tab which displays a list of all the notifications that the logged-in user has ever received under the same project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Figure 23: Content subscription can be done via Mark/Unmark links. (a) The user subscribes to the proposition by clicking on “Mark” link. (b) User is subscribed to the proposition and could unsubscribe from it by clicking on “Unmark”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Figure 24: The file directory tab display all the files and folders of a project. . . . . . 28

vi DRDC-RDDC-2016-R058

List of Tables

Table 1: Reliability and credibility ratings guideline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Table 2: Shorthand notations for Proposition commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

DRDC-RDDC-2016-R058 vii

Acknowledgements

Samuel He, a co-op student from the University of Toronto, spent four months on developing some of the key features of Sharik. Thank you Samuel for your great contribution to the development of Sharik.

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DRDC-RDDC-2016-R058 1

1 Introduction

In this report, we describe a software tool to support collaboration that is being developed as part of a larger project designed to develop new tools and techniques to support all-source intelligence analysts. The project, called the Joint Intelligence Collection and Analysis Capability (JICAC), is being run as a collaboration between Defence Research and Development Canada’s Valcartier and Toronto Research Centres, and aims to provide the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) with tools, techniques, and advice for procurement to reduce the amount of time analysts must search for information, and maximise the amount of time they can spend doing analysis.

The tool discussed in this report is called Sharik (SHAring Resources, Information, and Knowledge), a web-based tool aimed at supporting collaborative sensemaking among all-source intelligence analysts in either distributed or co-located intelligence analysis locales (e.g., All-Source Intelligence Centres, or ASICs).

All-source analysts produce intelligence products by integrating information from multiple sources. During the scoping exercise for JICAC, subject-matter experts (SMEs) identified collaboration as an important aspect of the analysts’ job that could be enhanced through the use of tools to support it. All-source analysts receive different types of information from collators or collection assets, and then integrate the information items to produce intelligence products. Sharik is designed to support analysts working together on different aspects of an intelligence problem by providing them with a means by which intelligence production can happen effectively in a collaborative fashion. Specifically, the Sharik is designed to help analysts:

effectively manage and integrate the information they receive from various sources;

effectively manage and integrate the knowledge they share and collaboratively produce intelligence products;

collaborate with their peers in an unobtrusive way; and,

form and maintain a high level of situational awareness (Endsley, 1988) with respect to the current status of the intelligence mission to which they are contributing.

To develop Sharik, we conducted a requirements analysis in January 2015. The results are documented in an earlier report (Ghajar-Khosravi & Kwantes, 2015). From it, 14 major use cases were identified. These use cases formed the basis of the design and development of a mock-up prototype. This prototype helped the JICAC team build a shared understanding of what such a collaborative sensemaking tool was supposed to do and how much of a good fit it was to the complementary tools being developed at DRDC under JICAC. Once the mock-up prototype was presented and the requirements were further refined by stakeholders, the next step was developing the tool in a web-based environment. The tool was created based on Drupal1, an open-source content management system built based on PHP2 and MySQL3. Drupal can be used to make various types of websites including e-commerce and social networking sites. What makes Drupal

1 https://www.drupal.org/. 2 PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page. But, it now also stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. 3 MySQL is named after its co-founder’s daughter, My. SQL abbreviation stands for Structured Query Language.

2 DRDC-RDDC-2016-R058

a powerful tool is the flexibility it provides for integrating as many modules as needed into a website. The Drupal’s extensive community provides a wide list of user-created modules which provide additional functionalities when integrated with Drupal’s core modules.

The development of Sharik is still in progress. The purpose of this report is to describe the capabilities built into the Sharik system to date. However, before demonstrating the various features of Sharik, the following section will provide an overview of the Intelligence Cycle (IC). As we discuss below, the main focus of this version of Sharik is on the processing stage; we will discuss in the section entitled “Future Development” other stages of the cycle that will eventually be supported in the future versions of Sharik.

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Notes: Notes are written/generated by analysts while searching the information pool or the inter/intranet. Analysts create notes to log details of people, locations, organizations, or anything considered relevant to a project or argument. Notes are generally expected to have supplementary files (e.g., documents, movies, pictures, etc.). In our view, notes should have evaluation ratings attached to them to describe aspects such as the reliability and credibility of the information contained within them. Ratings could be submitted following the criteria provided in the table below (Bandali et al., 2007).

Table 1: Reliability and credibility ratings guideline.

Reliability of the Source Credibility of the Information A Completely reliable 1 Confirmed by other sources B Usually reliable 2 Probably true C Fairly reliable 3 Possibly true D Not usually reliable 4 Doubtful E Unreliable 5 Improbable F Reliability cannot be judged 6 Not Credible

Entity wikis: Entities are the named concepts of interest in a project that are relevant to an investigation. For example, places, people, cities, groups, organizations, movements, and events are among the types of entities that could be central to an investigation.

Once data is collected about an entity, analysts may feel the need to integrate this data into an individual page or report. Sharik uses Wikis for this purpose. Analysts have the option to create a Wiki page for any concept/entity of the project. Whether or not the wiki feature is used depends on whether analysts have the luxury of time to record and elaborate on entities. The Wiki feature may be most applicable to strategic analyses wherein there is not an immediate requirement for an answer to an RFI. In operational contexts, analysts may not have the time to create a wiki page for any of their entities.

Propositions (intelligence): While investigating entities and concepts of interest, a key task for analysts includes finding and describing the relationships between them. These relationships would be uncovered from information contained in notes, entity wikis, or new files received from collators. In Sharik, the analyst expresses and stores facts or hypotheses pertaining to an investigation in the form of a proposition. A proposition is a statement linking two concepts or entities and is expressed as a judgment that is either true or false (Kwantes, Derbentseva, & Ghajar-Khosravi, 2015). For example, the statement Jason Bourne met David Webb is a proposition because it is either true or false. In our scheme, a proposition is expressed as a triple containing two concepts connected by a linking phrase.

We differentiate among three types of propositions: facts, extracts, and conjectures. Extracts represent factual statements that are supported by supplementary files or notes. Facts are statements that are considered to be true without supporting documentation. Finally, Conjectures are propositions that could be true or false but are as yet, unknown. We presume that Conjectures form the basis of the analysts’ new RFIs. Once the requisite evidence supporting a conjecture is found, they may be able to change a Conjecture to an Extract.

Properties: Analysts may need to input additional details about a proposition such as a time or the place associated with an event (e.g., Jason Bourne met David Webb in Toronto in fall 2012).


Once a proposition is created, Sharik allows the user to add any number of arbitrarily created properties.

Conclusion: Conclusion is a special property associated with propositions. Conclusion propositions are facts or conjectures that represent the final findings of an investigation, or the conjectures that precipitated the investigation. For example, validating the proposition “Jason Bourne works for David Webb” might be the purpose for conducting an investigation. We identify certain propositions as conclusions because, when they are rendered in visualization, we think that it is important that the user’s attention be easily directed to propositions (i.e., facts or conjectures) that are central to the goals of the investigation.

Externalizing Propositions as Concept Maps: Propositions are the “intelligence pieces” that are put together to form a story. A concept map (Cmap, Novak, 1998) is a visual technique for laying out all the relationships among propositions as a graph visualization of interconnected nodes linked by linking phrases. Sharik uses a Cmap visualization technique to provide analysts with an overview of a project’s knowns and unknowns.

Spatial and Temporal maps: In addition to the graph-representation of propositions, where each proposition is represented as connected nodes, analysts may also choose to view propositions on geospatial or temporal maps. Although not implemented yet, this feature will be applied to those propositions containing location and date/time details.

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6-R058

ave the optionommended thasearch functio

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DC-2016-R05

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58

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6-R058

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58

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Figure is cr

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er than just enhe need to intps) within a sined to suppor

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6-R058

9: The new nreated autom

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tity title is a l

ach entity pagd also contain

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To sejust thpage. bottom

feature is likere is that it proeach other and

ay format: Fr the Jason Bobers. So, as sowill be able to

e the full viewhe title of the To create a n

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Figure 10

Figure 10 showourne project oon as any of o include it un

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ws the tiles viso far. Entity

f the project mnder Jason’ B

ourne’ wiki p.e., “Jason Boe user needs t

o projects withbility to aggretity/concept o

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iew of the twoy wikis are intmembers findsBourne’s wiki

age (Figure 1ourne”) and thto click on “A

h a longer lifeegate differen

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der project’s s

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11), users couhe page will bAdd New Enti

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fe-span. The bnt pieces of in

space.

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uld click on “Rbe overlaid onity” button lo

DC-2016-R05

benefit of thisnformation

en created the group son Bourne,

Read more” on the project’s

ocated at the

58

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Once entitieof inteor entprodufollow

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C-RDDC-2016

Propo

pieces of infoes, the next crerest. We usetities (Derbenuce and recordwing fields:

Concepts: In components o

Concept typeas person, plasecond conce

Link: This fiedescribes the

Link type: Th“fact” or a “c(i.e., “extract”

6-R058

Figure 11

ositions

ormation are rucial step woe propositionsntseva & Kwad new intellig

Sharik, each of a propositio

e: The two conace, group, etcepts.

eld contains threlationship b

his field specionjecture” an”).

1: The full vie

entered into tould be extracs to express juantes, 2014). Pgence pieces. E

proposition inon and norma

ncepts or entic. This field e

he linking phbetween the c

ifies whether nd, if it is a fa

ew of Jason B

the project spcting and recoudgements abPropositions aEach proposi

ncludes two cally represent

ities of a propenables users

rase that linksconcepts.

the relationshact, whether o

Bourne’s wiki p

ace under notording the relaout the relatioare units of anition content p

concepts. Thet some entities

position couldto specify the

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hip described or not it is bac

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tes and/or groationships beonships betwenalysis enablipiece consists

ese make the ps of interest in

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ouped under etween entitieeen concepts ing analysts ts of the

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ent types suchfirst and

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nd concept typ

Figure projec

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Users are able he propositiond be recorded

here are entitiehe propositiounder the Sou

e are any newition through

f entering prop

entry: This an (located at tlds and the usut it gives usepes, linking ty

(a)

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approach

to add more dn says Jason Bd through the

es or notes than through the

urces section.

files relevantthis field.

positions into

approach is hathe bottom ofser fills in theers the opportuypes, and prop

sed data entryft panel on a poposition” buh for adding n

details about Bourne Met Dproperties of

at are relevane sources field

t to or suppor

o the system:

andled by Druf the left panee fields as neeunity to enterperties.

y approach foproject’s spacutton. (b) The new propositi

a propositionDavid Webb, f this proposit

nt to or suppod. A link to th

rting a propos

1) Field-base

upal. The userel). The systemeded (Figure 1r details like s

or adding newce (See FigureField-based d

ions to the sys

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n through propthe time and

tion.

rt a propositiohose notes and

sition, they ca

ed, 2) Shortha

r clicks on “Am displays a f12). This apprsupplementary

(b)

w propositione 4) containindata entry stem.

DC-2016-R05

perties. For location of th

on, they couldd entities will

an be attached

and-based

Add New form with all roach can be y file, first an

ns to ng

58

he

d l

d

nd


Shorthand/Command-based data entry: In addition to the fairly labour-intensive option of field-based data entry, users also have the option to enter shorthand format commands in the command field located at the top of the left panel. The simplest proposition command is as follows:

starts with the type (optional) and name of the first concept separated by “:”;

followed by the linking phrase enclosed by:

“-” and “>” for one way propositions; or

“-” and “-” for bi-directional propositions;

ends with the type (optional) and name of the second concept separated by “:”.

For example the command below enters a bi-directional proposition linking the two persons (designated with “i”) Jason Bourne and David Webb with the linking phrase Met with. Jason Bourne and David Webb are the concepts:

i:Jason Bourne -met with- i:David Webb.

For propositions representing a one-way relationship, the linking phrase is enclosed by “-” and “>”:

i:Jason Bourne –takes order from> i:David Webb.

Entering the concepts’ type is optional. So, the command below, without the i flag, is also admissible:

Jason Bourne –takes order from> David Webb.

18

If a prfalse—

?

The repropeassociDavidwould

i

The pby “,”pre-de

i

i:Jaso

i:Jason

Figurproject

text

roposition is a—the comman

? Jason Bourn

elationships berties include iated value sed Webb met ind be “Toronto

i:Jason Bourn

Property l

Property v

properties of r”. Date and Tiefined format

i:Jason Bourn

n Bourne -met

Bourne ‐met with‐ i:David W

(a)

re 13: Commat: (a) The left field, (b) The

a conjecture—nd starts with

ne –met with>

between concdate, time, lo

eparated by a n the form of o”:

ne –met with>

label: hair col

value: brown.

relationships aime are reservt of yyyyddm

ne –met with>

with- i:David W

Webb

and-based apppanel on proj

e new proposiafter submi

—i.e., it is noth a “?” as in th

> David Web

epts (i.e., the cation, weathcolon. For ex

f a property, th

> i:David We

lor.

.

are entered atved property lm for date an

> i:David We

Webb

pproach for adoject’s space cition is addeditting the com

t known yet whe command b

bb.

link) could hher, etc. Each xample, to enthe property’s

bb, in:Toront

t the end afterlabels and are

nd hhmmss fo

bb, in:Toront

dding new prcontaining th

d to the list of mmand.

whether the prbelow:

have associatiproperty conter the locatio label would

to.

r the second ce admissible oor time:

to, date:20110

DRDC-RDD

(b)

ropositions to e command li

f propositions

roposition is t

ons or propernsists of a labeon where Jasobe “in” and th

concept, separonly if used in

0923, time:10

DC-2016-R05

a ine

true or

rties. Exampleel and an on Bourne andhe value

rated n the standard

030.

58

e

d

d


In some cases, the same property might be repeated for a relationship. For example, if Jason Bourne has lived in Paris in two different years. To avoid multiple properties with the same label, the repeated labels will be numbered:

Jason Bourne –lived in> Paris, (date:2011, date2:2013, time:1030).

Table 2: Shorthand notations for proposition commands.

Notation First/Second concept type

Notation Relationship/ proposition type

Notation Separator

i: Individual(person) - link phrase> One-way link : If Properties -> “label:value” p: Place <link phrase> Bi-directional link : If Concepts -> “type:name” g: Group(organization) ? conjecture r: Role t: Thing/object e: Event

Users are not allowed to add all possible details (e.g., files, sources, etc.) to a proposition through the command format. However, they always have the option to edit a proposition after entering it into the system and add or edit further details to them at a later time.

Display format: As soon as a new proposition is entered into the system (using either of the two approaches above), it will be displayed under the “Propositions” tab located in the center of the project’s space. There are two display modes available for propositions: Tiles and Table formats.

In tile format (Figure 14), the proposition string is displayed along with the author and submitted date information. Users could view the proposition’s full page by clicking on the proposition’s title/string and the page will be displayed in the overlay format. Two links follow the author/date information. The “Edit” link points to a proposition’s edit page. The “Mark” link enables analysts to subscribe to the propositions for which they are interested in receiving updates (see Notifications section).

20

In tabtable cthird, whethlast up

ble format (Figcontains the prand fourth col

her or not the ppdated date. T

Figu

gure 15), each ropositions’ stlumns containproposition is

The table can b

re 14: Tile vi

row of the tabtring which is

n the types of ta conclusion a

be sorted based

iew display of

ble specifies onlinked to the p

the propositionand/or bi-direcd on any of the

f propositions

one propositionpropositions fn componentsctional and thee columns.

DRDC-RDD

s.

n. The first cofull page. The s. The fifth cole last column

DC-2016-R05

lumn of the second,

lumn displaysdisplays the

58

s

DRDC

FiltersFor ex

C-RDDC-2016

s: Both displayxample, users

Fig

6-R058

Fi

ys can be filterare able to cho

gure 16: Tile (only “

igure 15: Tab

red based on toose to view o

view of propo“extract” prop

ble view of pr

the types of coonly the “extra

ositions filterepositions are

ropositions.

oncepts, linkinact” propositio

ed by linking displayed her

ng phrases, or ons (Figure 16

phrase type re).

2

propositions. 6).

21

22

3.6

Propounits piecesto comtechnimenticonce

As caconceconcetype o

The liconnedirectlines. by bra

Conce

ositions make of analysis, as. Clearly howmmunicate “thique to providioned earlier, epts.

an be seen in Fept types and pepts which areof the concept

inks/relationsecting lines artion of the relIf a propositi

ackets. Conje

ept Maps

the core of thand the meanswever, readinhe situation” de analysts wa Cmap (Nov

Figure 17: tha

Figure 17, theproposition tye presented wt.

ships betweenre labelled wiationship betwion is an extraectures, on the

(Cmap)

he analyses ins by which ang a long list oto the users, S

with an overvievak, 1998) is

The Cmap visat belong to th

e Cmap uses sypes. Concep

with a person i

n concepts areth the linkingween the twoact (i.e., it cone other hand,

n the Sharik enalysts’ recordof propositionSharik thus uew of all the pa visual techn

sualization ofhe Jason Bou

some basic vipts are represeicon. The colo

e represented g phrases and o concepts. Fantains a back-are represente

environment id, relate, and ns may not beuses concept mpropositions snique for layi

f all the propourne project.

isual cues to dented as rectanours of the re

as lines connhave arrowhe

acts and extra-up file), its lied as dashed

DRDC-RDD

in the sense thshare key inte

e the most conmapping as a submitted to ing out relatio

ositions

differentiate tngles, except ctangles corre

necting the coneads represencts are represinking phraselines. Lastly,

DC-2016-R05

hat they are thelligence nvenient way visualization a project. As

onships amon

the various t for people espond to the

ncepts. The nting the sented as solide is enclosed propositions

58

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ng

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that represen

The Cauthoprovidselectdetailsystemunder

FilterpropoFiguredrop-d

C-RDDC-2016

epresent concnted using bla

Cmap based gr, or sources bde the informted propositios of a proposim will then dirneath the Cm

Figure 18: T

rs: Similar to ositions basede 19, the userdown menu.

6-R058

clusions are prack lines.

graph visualizbecause the g

mation howeveon in a separatition, users coisplay its prop

map canvas (as

The details ofat the botto

lin

table and tiled on the types r chooses to v

resented usin

ation of propograph would qer, Sharik supte panel displould select theperties, sourcs in Figure 18

f the propositom of the Cm

nking phrase

view of propof their comp

view only the

ng red lines wh

ositions does quickly becompplements the layed at the boe proposition es, and autho8).

tion “Jason Bmap panel afte“Lived in” on

positions, userponents as we“extract” pro

hile all other

not include tme too busy a Cmap by disottom of the C

n by clicking oor in a new pa

Bourne lived iner user clicks n the Cmap.

rs are able to ell as their au

opositions by u

types of prop

the propositioand difficult tosplaying detaiCmap panel. on its linking anel which wi

n Paris” is dion the

filter the visuuthors. For exausing the rele

2

positions are

ons’ propertieo read. To ils of any To view the phrase. The ll appear

isplayed

ualized ample, in evant filter’s

23

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24

3.7

To facSharik

Commthreadpubliccommwho hthe to

Messaprivatnew m

Live Cone an

Figure

Comm

cilitate commk: commentin

menting: Anading feature iscly and all the

ment is submithave commenp menu bar (F

aging: users cte and can onlmessages thro

Chat: When nother, they a

19: Cmap’s pphrases (on

menting a

munication amng, messaging

alysts can adds also availabe project memtted to a conte

nted or subscrFigure 20).

could look uply be read by

ough the top m

two analysts are also able t

propositions anly “extract” p

and Mess

mong collaborg, and Live Ch

d comments tble for replyinmbers are ableent, the user wribed to the co

p each other athe two sides

menu bar (Fig

are logged-into communica

are filtered bapropositions

aging

ating analystshat.

to any note, prng to an existie to review anwho has creatontent, will be

and send messs of the convegure 21).

n at the same tate with each

ased on the tyare displayed

s, three key fe

roposition, oring comment.nd/or commented the contene notified of t

sages to one aersation. The

time, in additother in a liv

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ype of the linkd here).

eatures are pr

r entity wiki p. Comments ant on them. Wnt, along withthe new comm

another. Messsystem will n

tion to sendinve chat room.

DC-2016-R05

king

rovided in

page. A are published

Whenever a h all the users ment through

sages are notify users of

ng messages to

58

f

o

DRDC

3.8

On th“Messbadgelast vibadge

Notifiwith r

C-RDDC-2016

Notific

he right-hand ssages”, whiche will be attacisit to the notie will disappe

ications is a krespect to the

6-R058

Figure 20:

cations

side of the Shh direct the usched to notificifications list

ear from the to

Figure 2bein

key feature in current status

Two commen

harik’s top meser to the moscations links o. As soon as top menu.

21: The right-ng displayed o

helping analys of the missi

nts submitted

enu, there arest recent messonce the user they view the

-hand side of on top of all S

ysts to retain ion or project

about a prop

e two links labsages and notreceives new

e recent notific

f the top menuSharik pages.

a high level oto which they

position.

belled “Notifitifications. A

w notificationscations page,

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of situational y are contribu

2

ications” and red menu s since their the red menu

awareness uting. On the

25

u

26

right preceiv

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3.9

By dethrougintereedited

panel of a proved (Figure 22

Figure 22

ications are cucations systemcontent piecent the loggedwith differen

Conte

efault, Sharik gh creating, c

ested in receivd. A content s

oject`s space, 2).

2: The right paa list of all th

ustomized to m. Users recees they create-in user has in

nt set of activi

nt Subsc

gives notificacommenting, oving update nosubscription fe

there is a list

anel of each phe notification

received und

the user and eive notificatio, edit, commenteracted withities.

criptions

ations to useror editing theotifications on

feature is inclu

t of notificatio

project’s spacns that the logder the same p

his or her actons for new uent, or subscrh, his/her noti

rs on any propem. In some cn content he/suded in Sharik

ons that the lo

ce contains a gged-in user project.

tivity history. updates, commribe to. Therefifications wil

position they cases, howeveshe has not crk to support t

DRDC-RDD

ogged-in user

tab which dishas ever

It is similar tments, and sufore, dependill be different

have interacteer, a user mighreated, commthis need.

DC-2016-R05

r has

splays

to Facebook’subscriptions ong on what

t from other

ed with ht be

mented, or

58

s on

DRDC

For easubscor ma“Unmthem notific

3.10

The ladisplaincluddata e

C-RDDC-2016

(a)

(b)

Figure 23:subs

ach propositioribed to that p

ake changes tomark”. Once th

by clicking ocations regard

0 File Di

ast tab on the ays all the filedes files submentry section (

6-R058

: Content subsscribes to the

subscribe

on there is a “proposition, ao that proposihe user loses

on the “Unmarding that prop

irectory

center panel es and foldersmitted via the (see Figure 8)

scription canproposition b

ed to the propfrom it by cli

“Mark” link. Wand from thenition. Clickinginterest in herk” link and fposition (Figu

of the projects submitted unnote snippet ).

be done via Mby clicking onposition and cicking on “Un

When the usen on will receig on the link’r marked propfrom then on ture 23).

t’s space is thnder a projectfeature explai

Mark/Unmarn “Mark” linkcould unsubsc

Unmark”.

er clicks on thive notificatio’s label will chpositions, shethe user will

he “Directoryt during the liined in the “N

rk links. (a) Thk. (b) User iscribe

his link, the usons if anyonehange it frome can unsubscno longer rec

” tab (Figure ife-time of a pNotes” shorth

2

he user

ser will be e comments onm “Mark” to cribe from ceive

24) which project. This

hand-based

27

n

28

Figure 224: The file ddirectory tab d

display all thee files and fol

DRDC-RDD

lders of a proj

DC-2016-R05

ject.

58


4 Future Development

The development of the Sharik tool is still in progress and further requirements are to be covered in the future versions. Some of these features will include:

1. Improved presentation of properties: In the current version of the Cmap, the user is able to view properties of only one proposition at a time (Figure 19). But, we need the ability to display multiple (or a summary of) properties in order to enable analysts to find related entities based on their shared properties.

2. Filtering the presentation of propositions by properties: In the current version of the Cmap, propositions can only be filtered by the type of concepts and their relationships. Hence, adding the capability of filtering propositions by other properties such as timeframes or locations is needed to provide analysts with more customized Cmap views.

3. Improved search feature for project’s documents search: The Drupal’s native search capability is not adequate for analysts’ requirements because it only looks into notes, propositions, or wikis that have been created through Sharik’s interface. It does not search the content of files associated with the project. To fix the issue, we are exploring the use of other tools (e.g., Apache’s Solr4) as devices for indexing saved files.

4. The integration of the Intelligence Collection Plan (ICP) into the Sharik environment: To make Sharik more compatible with the intelligence analysis workflow, we intend to include the ICP into Sharik. The plan is to allow the user to upload the ICP into Sharik and have the system automatically generate workspaces dedicated to each PIR, as such an approach would fit this purpose.

5. Creating, submitting and managing Requests for Information (RFI): We are currently adding a capability to create and submit RFIs, as well as linking RFIs to existing propositions. Analysts will also be able to view the list of past RFIs. The RFIs are not included in the system at this point, but they could be added to the next version of Sharik to support the needs of the CCIRMs.

6. The automatic generation of reports/graphics from project’s content to insert into commander’s brief: This feature will enable analysts to automatically generate reports/graphics using the content submitted under missions.

4 http://lucene.apache.org/solr/.


5 Conclusion

The development of Sharik is still in progress and further requirements are to be developed in the future versions. The focus of this version of Sharik discussed here is to support the processing stage of the intelligence cycle. Other stages of the cycle will eventually be supported in the future versions of Sharik by developing features such as ICP upload, RFI submission, and the automatic generation of reports/presentation from projects’ content. The purpose of this report is to describe the capabilities built into the Sharik system to date.


References

Bandali, F., Bruyn, L., Vokac, R., Keeble, R., Zobarich, R., Berger, N., & Lamoureux, T. (2007). CF Procedures and Practices Involving Information Aggregation (No. DRDC-CR-2007-049). HumanSytems Inc., Guelph (Ontario).

Derbentseva, N., & Kwantes, P. (2014). CMap readability: Propositional parsimony, map layout and semantic clarity and flow. CMC 2014. E14-0915-0940.

Endsley, M. R. (1988, October). Design and evaluation for situation awareness enhancement. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 97–101). SAGE Publications.

Ghajar-Khosravi, S. & Kwantes, P. (in process). Designing a web-based tool supporting collaborative sensemaking among intelligence analysts (Defence Research and Development Canada, Reference Document, D16-0414-1555).

Kwantes, P., Derbentseva, N., Ghajar-Khosravi, S. (2015). A Template for graphical knowledge representation to support collaborative sensemaking (Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Report, R15-0430-1443).

Novak, J. D. (1998). Learning, creating, and using knowledge: Concept Maps as Facilitative tools in schools and corporations, Mahwah, N. J. Erlbaum.

Pirolli, P., & Card, S. (2005, May). The sensemaking process and leverage points for analyst technology as identified through cognitive task analysis. In Proceedings of international conference on intelligence analysis (Vol. 5, pp. 2–4).




List of Symbols/Abbreviations/Acronyms/Initialisms

CAF Canadian Armed Forces

CCIR Commander’s Critical Information Requirements

CCIRM Collection Coordination and Intelligence Requirements Management

CF Canadian Forces

Cmap Concept Map

DND Department of National Defence

DRDC Defence Research and Development Canada

DSTKIM Director Science and Technology Knowledge and Information Management

HUMINT Human Intelligence

IC Intelligence Cycle

ICP Intelligence Collection Plan

IR Information Requirement

JICAC Joint Intelligence Collection and Analysis Capability

OSINT Open Source Intelligence

PIR Priority Intelligence Requirement

RFI Request for Information

Sharik SHAring Resources, Information, and Knowledge

SIGINT Signal Intelligence

SME Subject Matter Expert



DOCUMENT CONTROL DATA (Security markings for the title, abstract and indexing annotation must be entered when the document is Classified or Designated)

1. ORIGINATOR (The name and address of the organization preparing the document. Organizations for whom the document was prepared, e.g., Centre sponsoring a contractor's report, or tasking agency, are entered in Section 8.)

DRDC – Toronto Research Centre Defence Research and Development Canada 1133 Sheppard Avenue West P.O. Box 2000 Toronto, Ontario M3M 3B9 Canada

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UNCLASSIFIED

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(NON-CONTROLLED GOODS) DMC A REVIEW: GCEC DECEMBER 2013

3. TITLE (The complete document title as indicated on the title page. Its classification should be indicated by the appropriate abbreviation (S, C or U) in parentheses after the title.)

Sharik 1.0: The Design and Development of a Web-Based Tool to Support Collaborative Sensemaking

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Ghajar-Khosravi, S.; Kwantes, P.

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April 2016

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13. ABSTRACT (A brief and factual summary of the document. It may also appear elsewhere in the body of the document itself. It is highly desirable that the abstract of classified documents be unclassified. Each paragraph of the abstract shall begin with an indication of the security classification of the information in the paragraph (unless the document itself is unclassified) represented as (S), (C), (R), or (U). It is not necessary to include here abstracts in both official languages unless the text is bilingual.)

All-source analysts collaborate with each other on various information requirements. Theyreceive different types of information from various collators, integrate and relate thoseinformation items to produce intelligence, and then share the new intelligence items with their peers. In this report, the authors describe Sharik (SHAring Resources, Information, andKnowledge), a web-based tool aimed at supporting collaborative sensemaking among all-source intelligence analysts in distributed command and control centers. The primary goal of this toolis to support analysts in producing, and more importantly sharing, new intelligence pieces withtheir teammates while retaining a high situational awareness of the intelligence production’sstatus.

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Les analystes toutes sources collaborent entre eux afin de répondre à divers besoins en matièred’information. Ils reçoivent et intègrent divers types d’information de différents compilateurs etétablissent des liens entre les éléments d’information pour en obtenir du renseignement dont ilspartageront ensuite les éléments avec leurs pairs. Dans ce rapport, les auteurs décrivent Sharik (SHAring Resources, Information and Knowledge, soit le partage des ressources, del’information et des connaissances), un outil Web qui facilite le raisonnement collaboratif chezles analystes du renseignement toutes sources disséminés dans les centres de commandement et contrôle. L’objectif principal de cet outil est d’aider les analystes à produire, certes, mais surtoutà partager de nouveaux éléments de renseignement avec leurs coéquipiers, tout en conservantune connaissance élevée de la situation quant à l’état de la production de renseignement.

14. KEYWORDS, DESCRIPTORS or IDENTIFIERS (Technically meaningful terms or short phrases that characterize a document and could be helpful in cataloguing the document. They should be selected so that no security classification is required. Identifiers, such as equipment model designation, trade name, military project code name, geographic location may also be included. If possible keywords should be selected from a published thesaurus, e.g., Thesaurus of Engineering and Scientific Terms (TEST) and that thesaurus identified. If it is not possible to select indexing terms which are Unclassified, the classification of each should be indicated as with the title.)

Collaborative Sensemaking tool; design specification

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Sharik 1.0: The Design and Development of a Web-Based Tool ...Sharik 1.0: The Design and Development of a Web-Based Tool to Support Collaborative Sensemaking Shadi Ghajar-Khosravi