Enabling Representation of Meta-Information in Net-Centric Environments (ERMINE)

The modern military environment is shifting towards the paradigm of network-centric warfare (NCW). NCW harnesses the power of multiple information systems operating concurrently and makes a wealth of information available to the Warfighter, but can result in information overload. As a result, there is a need to identify and represent actionable information to the Warfighter along with the associated qualifiers, or meta-information (e.g., pedigree, authenticity), contributing to its actionability. To address the need to communicate both information and its associated meta-information to the Warfighter in net-centric environments, we propose to design, demonstrate, and evaluate techniques for Enabling Representation of Meta-Information in Net-Centric Environments (ERMINE). Four core components characterize our approach. First, we will perform a Work Domain Analysis to develop a structured categorization of the Warfighter’s information and meta-information requirements within a specific domain. Second, we will design and demonstrate a rapid prototyping environment to rapidly generate and refine new meta-information representation techniques. Third, we will develop an evaluation methodology and perform pilot studies to assess the developed techniques, and identify underlying perceptual and cognitive mechanisms. Fourth, we will create and maintain a conceptual framework to catalog and characterize effective meta-information representation techniques developed within the visualization research community.