VICTR-E: Visualizations for Integrating, Communicating and Tracking Reasoning Electronically

Intelligence analysts have access to a massive stream of open-source text data, such as news and social media, to obtain essential information about the socio-cultural environment. The uncertainty of these data requires analysts to think critically when interpreting their meaning. However, analysts have few tools that organize those data, support critical thinking, and help them to develop analysis products. Aptima"s Visualizations for Integrating, Communicating and Tracking Reasoning Electronically (VICTR-E) is an analytical tool that enables analysts to define, visualize, and test arguments about news and social media text. An intelligent dashboard prioritizes information for the analyst"s review using relevance algorithms and interactive data displays and filtering. In addition, VICTR-E"s interfaces will support the development of structured arguments. This approach will increase the transparency of an analyst"s thought process, enhance collaboration among analysts, and enable the institution to capture and reuse the best of analytic thought. VICTR-E will enable analysts to inspect the range of intelligence data available to them (initially open-source data) and develop graphical hypotheses or arguments that link data (evidence) to conclusions (claims) through explanations.