Objective
The purpose of this report is to explore the previous and current use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and Government off-the-shelf (GOTS) collaboration tools by government andmilitary organizations.
This report seeks a current understanding and the wider perspectivemore than an in-depth analysis of specific tools because the tools and their usage change or evolve surprisingly quickly over time. Unlike just a few decades ago, the U.S. Government,including all branches of the military, operates today both administratively and tactically usingthe Internet. Not surprisingly, the public sector has greater computer and Internet user rates thanthe private sector (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2005), and increasingly the Internet use involvescommercial collaboration tools. Therefore, it will be beneficial to explore the recent past andcurrent status of collaboration tool use in order to provide recommendations for the future. Areasoned objective might be to ask the question, what are the “best” web-based tools to supportsmall team interaction and work when team members cannot reside in the same physicalworkspace. This quick review of a wide array of collaboration tools cannot address thatquestion. Nor does this research address the benefits for using collaboration tools, although it isinformative to note that Ford, Hogan, and Perry (2002) suggested that most complex work involves decisions, and that too often our decision space is limited by our bounded rationality(cf. Kahneman, 2003). Likewise, both the reliability and validation of collaborative tools are beyond the scope of this effort, although Powers (2004) and Noble and Letsky (2003) haveaddressed those fundamental topics. Finally, this report does not address prospectivecollaboration technology such as tele-immersion,
nor collaboration process tools likeGroupSystems.Here, we will report on our search for team collaboration tools used in the military andgovernment. The tools will be reviewed in terms of capabilities, and then analyzed with respectto which collaboration applications may offer the most potential to improve cognitivecollaboration within and among the stages of the collaboration model proposed by Warner,Letsky, and Cowen (2005). Moreover, Wroblewski & Warner (2005) have provided a list of collaborative capabilities on commercially available tools for team collaboration (cf. AppendixA). For this report, two methods were used to identify collaboration tools being used either bythe U.S. military or the Federal Government. Those two methods, ad hoc research andsystematic document search, are described below. The culmination of this report will be theidentification of collaboration tools that are currently “authorized” for use, as well as theidentification of a handful of current COTS tools that deserve review and consideration for military crisis response.
The Dilemma
No nation in the history of the world is more capable and trained to deal with crisis thanthe United States of America. Nevertheless, as the lessons from September 11, 2001 andHurricane Katrina continue to unfold, we continue to discover our inability to evolve acomprehensive communication solution to crisis or disaster response. Katrina provides only themost recent example wherein a lack of coordination and misinformation fueled the responsedelay. Bolstad and Endsley (2005) noted the “major communication failures” during and after
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For economy of space and time in this report, comments about specific collaboration technologies and tools may be in quotes. To facilitate the exploration and understanding of the various topics and tools presented in thisdocument, the liberal use of hyperlinks and footnotes has been used.
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