Instant Messaging and Team Performance in a Simulated Command and Control Environment

Abstract

Recent trends in military acquisition have emphasized the desire to introduce collaboration technologies into the command and control and control environment. Personnel in this environment may be disparate in terms of rank, occupation, and even geographical location, yet are expected to rapidly coalesce into functioning teams in order to meet task requirements. It has been proposed that integration and performance may be facilitated through emerging collaborative technologies, such as email, instant messaging (IM), virtual whiteboards, and videoconferencing. Proponents of Network Enabled Capability (NEC) argue that these technologies might engender a degree of command decentralization that would result in increased situational awareness and task flexibility for battle managers. However, there are growing concerns about the potential negative impact on performance associated with the use of collaborative tools in distributed team environments.

Document Details

• Document Type: Technical Report
• Publication Date: Feb 01, 2006
• Accession Number: ADA444779

Entities

People

• Allen Dukes
• Gregory J. Funke
• Scott M. Galster
• W. T. Nelson

Organizations

• General Dynamics

Tags

Communities of Interest

• Autonomy
• C4I
• Engineered Resilient Systems
• Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

• Air Force
• Air Force Research Laboratories
• Aircrafts
• Command And Control
• Data Analysis
• Electronic Messaging
• Environment
• Frequency
• Ground Vehicles
• Information Systems
• Military Research
• Simulations
• Situational Awareness
• Standards
• Teamwork
• Vehicles
• Workload

Fields of Study

• Computer science

Readers

• Agent-Based Social Robotics and Mobile-Assisted Learning in Virtual Environments.
• Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
• Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.

Technology Areas

• Fully Networked C3
• Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control