Use of Information Technology to Develop a Collaborative Decision Support System for Command and Control

摘要

The need for rapid access to current, relevant, and accurate information is at anall-time premium — especially for military operations. Many new InformationTechnology (IT) Tools were introduced to facilitate these information-relatedinteractions in the Global Wargame 2000, held at the Naval War College, inNewport, RI. A web-based architecture, called the Wargame Information GridSystem (WIGS), and a collaborative planning and operational environment, theInformation Work Space (IWS), provided an alternative means to communicate,collaborate, and share information among decisionmakers than is seen in today’scurrent operational environments. In addition to WIGS and IWS, the followingtools were provided to participants: Text Documents, the Knowledge Wall, Email,Text Chat, Voice, and Video Teleconferencing. Developing an understanding ofthe implications and effects of distributed gaming was a key goal of Global 2000with one objective being to provide insight into future operations for a distributed,network-centric joint force. A sub-objective was to obtain empirical data as to theeffectiveness of these new tools, and to identify user defined enhancements thatwould better meet the decisionmakers’ requirements. In order to collect the datawith which to assess user perceptions of the utility of IT Tools, an IT ToolFunctionality Questionnaire was developed. This paper presents the results ofanalysis of data from 112 respondents’ replies to the questionnaire designed toassess the utility of the IT Tools with respect to supporting the users accessingand sharing of information, decision-making, collaboration, and how they mightbe improved in future versions.