Personalised Briefing Agents to Improve Situational Awareness

Situational awareness is essential for effective decision making in both military and civilian domains. In order to achieve good situational awareness a decision maker must be able to access information from a number of sources and combine this with his/her current knowledge. The retrieved information must be appropriate to the task and role of the user, and be presented to him/her in an appropriate manner. Our conjecture is that Personalised Briefing Agents can assist users with achieving situational awareness by connecting to an Agent-Oriented Information System and using user models to provide personalised briefings. Problem Statement Situational awareness is a ubiquitous term in the military domain but it is equally important in civilian domains where crucial decisions must be made. Three widely accepted critical factors for the development of situational awareness are the perception of available facts, comprehension of the facts in relation to the individual’s current knowledge, and the projection of how the situation is likely to develop in the future [1]. When trying to make a decision, a commander or executive will collaborate with other members of the team as well as consulting various information sources. This collaboration and consultation is asynchronous in nature as each member follows his/her own decision-making cycle. Each member of the group can develop his/her own situational awareness from their own interactions and experiences. Briefings are held at staff meetings in order to support the achievement of a shared situational awareness across all members of the group and to align individuals’ mental models. Briefings also provide an opportunity to spot conflicts and unexplored opportunities. The preparation of briefings is a labour-intensive process. The time spent collecting and collating information and the designing a presentation is not available for other tasks – which is as important to the business world as it is to the military. Information overload is an ever-present problem throughout the process. Individuals also have different information requirements that may not be met by a group briefing; indeed, there is a risk of overloading the individual with irrelevant information, particularly if the style of the presentation is inappropriate.