Rapid Ethnographic Assessment and Data management Integration Toolkit (READ-IT)

Socio-cultural factors are increasingly being recognized as critical to effective military operations. Therefore, collection and analysis of socio-cultural data is required to provide Warfighters with a comprehensive understanding of their operational environment. Warfighters need tools that enable the capture, management, and rapid analysis of socio-cultural data from heterogeneous sources (e.g., specialized units, combat patrols). Under Phase I, we designed and demonstrated a toolkit architecture that integrates a data management server with collection and analysis tools (including an in-depth analysis tool for expert analysts and a mobile data collection tool for Warfighters). Based on our Phase I successes, we propose a Phase II effort to design and develop a full-scope Rapid Ethnographic Assessment and Data Management Toolkit (READ-IT). This effort includes: (1) expanding our cognitive task analysis to additional operational settings and data collection opportunities; (2) extending our in-depth analysis and mobile collection tools with additional ethnographic assessment techniques and visualization methods; (3) developing high-level analysis tools to help Warfighters rapidly explore ethnographic data; (4) refining the integrated toolkit architecture and data management server; and (5) demonstrating and evaluating the full-scope READ-IT toolkit to support ongoing interactions with our DoD transition partners as well as commercial and academic partners.