Decision Support for Geospatial Intelligence Analysis

Geospatial data is growing exponentially.  There are more sensors on more platforms, better sensors are collecting greater quantities of data, and new algorithms are deriving new geospatial information from existing data. This data growth and concomitant proliferation of GEOINT products have resulted in intelligence production volumes becoming the de facto proxy for intelligence value. Collection and production tallies are commonly and historically used by intelligence centers to demonstrate their contribution to the warfighter.  But even in those nodes where production volumes are genuinely relevant metrics, they still tend to lack enough sophistication and detail to communicate their effectiveness and efficiency to decision makers.  Even rarer are metric systems for determining the value of intelligence products to their users.  Did it answer the Request for Information (RFI) completely and on time? Did it communicate the key points effectively? Did it contribute to decision superiority? BENEFIT: There is a realistic expectation that a successful implementation of Service Oriented Metrics Capture and Presentation (SOMCAP) will lead to a broadened base of metrics and metrics applications beyond GEOINT.  Accordingly, this suggests opportunity for human effectiveness research into optimal models and algorithms for metrics calculation and presentation.  It is expected that given an increase in metrics available to the ISR community, there will be a corollary need to research how metrics influence behavior.  A sample list of questions which could be examined include: What kinds of metrics exert the greatest motivational influence on behavior? What periodicity of metric reporting results in the greatest positive influence while simultaneously minimizing data collection and reporting costs? What are effective strategies for encouraging customer feedback? To what extent are customer behaviors in the armed services similar to customers in the commercial economy?  How should customer satisfaction thus be pursued? While we fully anticipate that research for this SBIR will point to answers to these questions, our current scope will be limited to the central challenge of overcoming data access gaps to focus squarely on GEOINT decision making.  Once solved, research to further refine metrics strategies can flourish.