Structured and Decentralised Discussion Systems for Distributed Decision Making
Abstract
Sustaining distributed operations in remote, rapidly changing environments, is a key requirement for effectively supporting marine and naval forces. Data security is also key to the sustainability of operations in situations in which points of support can be compromised. However, enabling distributed decision making goes beyond effective and secure data sharing, it requires the capability to thoroughly assess the reasons for and against a measure before a decision is made. It requires careful discussion and deliberation between different people, with diverse expertise and viewpoints, and participating from often dispersedgeolocations. Thorough deliberation can improve the awareness of issues, prevent barriers to actions, reduce conflicts, and enhance the effectiveness of final decisions. Still, the discussion spaces that we see on the Web today do not support thorough deliberation: they are rudimental in the way they structure data; scarcely support evidencebased reasoning; lack features to enhance personal and situational awareness; and often produce polarisation, division and conflict. In addition to this, existing online dialogue technologies are highly centralised. Social Media companies own the most accessible and widespread discussion tools available on the Web, thus imposing high costs on the organisations that want to use them or customise them. In addition, organisations have to ~trade~ their data rights to be granted access to social media technologies, which isproblematic; because online dialogue systems often contain highly sensitive organizational data, which could be easily misused.To transcend these limitations, this project will firstly investigate the key socio-technical requirements of quality discussion and deliberation processes in distributed decision-making contexts. These requirements will then be used to ground the design and development of a powerful new technology for structured and decentralized online discussion. Finally, the platform will be evaluated in a series of controlled and practical experiments to derive sound scientific conclusions. We propose an approach that combines three main innovations: (1) an argumentation-based analytic engine to identify and intervene on emerging discussion bias and malicious communications; (2) a decentralised protocol which enables anonymous participation while allowing users~ reputation scoring to improve quality and accountability of discussion; and (3)interactive visualisations to better make sense, summarise and communicate the state, progress and dynamics of an online debate. This approach will result in an online discussion platform which is equally accessible, but more structured, decentralised, and higher quality than common social media.In navy relevance terms, the new technology developed and tested in this project will improve discussion-based situational awareness, planning and decision support for navy operations, by providing:~ A structured discussion environment to develop a common operational pictureaccessible and tailorable to command needs;~ A collective space to identify and reconcile different views and promote awareness between distributed participants;~ Various analytical and visual interfaces for sense making and reporting of issues and results of deliberation;~ A securely decentralized discussion platform to respond to critical situations, such as scenarios in which points of support can be compromised;~ An intuitive online discussion interface requiring limited to no subject matterexpertise to be operated and effectively used.This project will deliver the next generation of technological solutions for discussion enhanced decision making. It will enable fundamental deliberation and visual sense making capabilities for distributed navy~s teams, to successfully run operations in increasingly contested, diverse, multi-expertise, and highly data driven decisional contexts.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- May 23, 2019
- Source ID
- N000141912366
Entities
People
- Anna De Liddo
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- The Open University
- United States Navy