Unclassified Information Sharing and Coordination in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief

Unclassified Information Sharing and Coordination in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Ranjeev Mittu Head, Intelligent Decision Support Section (NRL Code 5584)U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Washington, DC 20375 Collaborative Expedition Workshop #63 Tuesday and Wednesday, July 17-18, 2007 at NSF Towards Stable Meaning and Records Preservation in Information-Sharing: Building the Way Forward Together

Agenda • Problem Motivation • Operational Challenges in HADR Coordination • Information Sharing / Collaboration Hierarchy • Sharing Unclassified Information; Extranet Sharing Services • ShareInfoForPeople (SIFP) • Technology Challenges / Issues in HADR to be explored in SIFP • SNA • Task Management • OpenID • Communications Infrastructure • Future Challenges and Gaps • Trident Warrior 2007 • Noble Resolve 07-2 • Longer Term Challenges

Problem Motivation (1) • The United States has been involved as part of multinational coalitions • Afghanistan (e.g., JTF Afghanistan) • Iraq (http://www.mnf-iraq.com/) • It has also provided humanitarian assistance & disaster relief (HADR) in response to devastating natural disasters around the world. • Indian Ocean tsunami (2004) • Kashmir earthquake (2005) • Increasingly, the scale and scope of such events involve both civilian and military components, as resources are stretched thin to support multiple ongoing crises

Problem Motivation (2) • Stability operations are becoming a core mission of DoD through the emergence of new doctrine. • Short term goals are to restore security, essential services and meet humanitarian needs • Long term goal is to develop indigenous capacity for security and basic necessities. • These operations are being given the same priority as combat operations • Without the means to effectively coordinate the activities of the response community, overall response may severely impeded.

Problem Motivation (3) Operational Challenges in HADR: Sri Lanka Groups Active in Tsunami Relief Activities

Problem Motivation (4) Doctrinal Changes Baseline DoD Directive 3000.05: • Ensure effective information exchange and communications among the DoD components, US Departments and Agencies, foreign governments and security forces, IOs, NGOs, and members of the Private Sector (para 5.7.1). • This now affords Combatant Commanders around the world an opportunity to provide a basic ICT capacity and leave it behind.

Operational Challenges in HADR Coordination • Usually coordination is a result of voluntary efforts • Coordination as “directing” is rarely effective • Relief agencies partly function within a framework of self-interest • Assist their targeted beneficiaries • Assist their beneficiaries in such a way that their good works are seen and valued by donor community and the “profile” of their agency is enhanced. • Farther down on the list is the goal of recognizing the contribution of others or admitting someone else can do the job better • Coordination is not necessarily an agency’s first priority • Coordination between highly structured organization (military) and loosely structure organizations (civil). • Military tends to be hierarchical, structured, and command-oriented • Civil tend to be less formal • Functional divisions can be confusing for military commanders • In interest of security, military may withhold information; at the same time this does not stop military from wanting information

Coordination • The regulation of diverse elements into an integrated & harmonious operation • A control process designated to achieve cooperation • Cooperation • Working together on a common goal or task • Possible to cooperate while maintaining ultimately separate interests Information SharingCollaboration Hierarchy • Collaboration = Collaborative Information Environments • Two or more humans cooperating in such a way that the result is a mutual creation reflecting notable insight, skill, or intellect • Requires human interaction (so far) • A creative process resulting in something that did not exist previously Collaboration is an “enhanced” form of interaction, whereas information sharing, cooperation, or coordination are enablers, important but not sufficient Focus of Unclass Info Sharing Efforts • Information Sharing • The basic act of providing information to others • Independent of how others will use that information • Requires no cooperation or shared objectives Making information visible, accessible, understandable, and trusted

Sharing Unclassified Information: “Extranet Sharing Services (ESS)” • Info Sharing Strategy: • Promote & encourage sharing • Achieve an extended enterprise • Agility that accommodates • unanticipated partners or events • Ensure trust across organizations • Stability Operations (DoDD 3000.05): • Core US military mission - support indigenous institutions • Priority now comparable to combat missions • Facilitate info sharing among DoD, US Govt, foreign govts, IOs, NGOs, & private sector … to “secure a lasting peace and facilitate the timely withdrawal of US & foreign forces” “Information mobility is both the foundation and core of the DoD Information Sharing capability.“ • Internet is the only common ground available to all mission partners • Info Sharing Strategy: • Elements of information mobility (technology, workforce literacy, social networks, policies, and security) • Enables Stability Ops, Humanitarian Assistance, Disaster Relief & Building Partnership Capacity

ShareInfoForPeople.org (SIFP.org) (1) • Browser-based set of tools to enable real time collaboration and information sharing based on open standards and frameworks • Application of web 2.0 technologies to enable real-time collaboration and information sharing for HADR operations • Content is indexed based on user-specified meta-data tags to enable searching of local content • Utilization of GeoRSS technology to integrate latest content from TRITON and Veterans For America [future versions to include content from JPEG Meta-Data Tagging (JMDT) initiative] • Blogs, wiki, polls and forums within a group-based structure • Create or upload content such as events, video, audio, images, disaster reports and web links in a group-based structure. • Fotonotes annotation capability (i.e., image annotation / markup) • Geo-tagged content; displayed on a map. • All subscribed-to content generates email alerts. • Subject Matter Expert (SME) registry • Multi-lingual Chat

ShareInfoForPeople.org (2)Opening Page

ShareInfoForPeople.org (3)Wiki

ShareInfoForPeople.org (4)Upload / Create Content • Users create or upload content and describe via metadata • Meta data is indexed and can be used as a mechanism to search • The user can specify the group in which to make that content visible, and can also place the content on a map by specifying a latitude and longitude coordinate ( • Only a few of the items are required to be completed when uploading content, the other fields are optional. • Additional content such as blogs, events and disaster reports can also be created within the site.

ShareInfoForPeople.org (5)Image Annotation / Markup • User can add, edit, delete or hide notes on the image. • Notes are created by placing a bounding box over the area of interest on the image, while the note allows descriptive information to be added such as subject and comments about the note • Furthermore if coordinates are associated with the image, it can be geo-referenced on a corresponding map (at the lower right corner of the web page in Figure 4).

ShareInfoForPeople.org (6)Near Term development (2-3 months) • My Site Personalization • Content Rating / User Rating • Content Recommendation • User Points • Email discussion threads / posting to groups automatically

Technology Challenges and Issues in HADR to be Explored in SIFP.org(3-6 months) • Understanding emerging social networks and which groups should be involved and their role (s) – Social Network Analysis (SNA) • Lack of automated coordination tools; there are processes in place but most coordination is manual; there are likely benefits from a coordination tool that supports Task Management. • Conflicting goals each of which may be equally important to the respective contributing organizations. • How should a coordination tool allow the users to negotiate tasks and understand the consequences / trade-offs? • Single Sign-on via OpenID • Possible lack of communications infrastructure in which coordination must take place; leading to possible information disadvantage and suboptimal resource allocation. • Lack of a common taxonomy / definitions encompassing NGO’s, IGO’s, Civil and military authorities.

Social Network Analysis • Who's connected / linked (e.g., friends) based on discussion threads within / across groups • What key words are being discussed between links • Aggregation of keywords to higher level concepts / ideas that are being discussed across links • Query mechanism to search and filter on graph & display • User rating on performer skill sets (perhaps indirectly through their postings)

Task Management (1) XMPP messages between Coordination Tools and Server Task  XMPP Activity specification Performer  XMPP User Profile Specification P2P or HTN Task Task-ID Task Name Task Type Deadline Location Performer Skill Set Cost Required Skill Set jabber-server Role Assignment Server (RAS) Task-Performer Mapping XMPP Client Performer Location User-ID Coordination Tool XMPP Client Coordination Tool XMPP Client Changing costs may dictate a cycle of task negotiation GUI (list view) Commit De-commit Reallocate

Task Management (2)Role Assignment Server • The role assignment problem • Magents, Nroles and M=N • (i,j)  Assignment of an agent i to a role j • ai,j Utility of role j to agent i • Wj Priority of role j in the global task • Maximize Si,j ai,jwj • Three classes of algorithms studied • Distributed Stochastic Algorithm (DSA) • Simple Distributed Improvement (SDI) • Distributed Constraint Optimization (DCO) • Initial implementation and evaluation of assignment algorithms in RePast using coordination solution quality metrics • RePast is an agent-based simulation and modeling tool where agents act concurrently in a decentralized manner. • Its powerful scheduling mechanism was used to model the asynchronous behavior of the agents • Later experiments conducted in Mobile Network Emulator and NS-2

OpenID • An ability to logon to the site using the OpenID standard will likely provide advantages and benefits. • This will enable users to log on once, and seamlessly migrate to and from sites that must be password protected by relying on the OpenID service provider to verify the identity of the user. • This translates into a single-sign-on capability, allowing users to seamlessly move through other sites that support the OpenID standard. • Issue is Rich Attribute Exchange between OpenID service provider and requesting client.

Military Tactical Edge Communications InfrastructureInternet S&T View and Problem Space(from 80,000 feet) High Performance Networks The Mainstream Internet Mobile, Ad Hoc Networks • Some Common Characteristics • Stable infrastructure • Fiber optic/High-speed RF/wireless optical • Highest bandwidth • Low latency • Connection-oriented links • Policy-based QoS • Some Common Characteristics • Mixed range of assets • Mixed media • Tending to higher bandwidth • Overprovisioned • Low to high latency • Table-based routing • Mixed policies in forwarding and QoS • Some Common Characteristics • Ad hoc assets • Generally wireless • Design for degraded operation • Large variability in latency and bandwidth • Highly dynamic routing • More distributed network service models required • Change is the norm

Communications Infrastructure • Degraded communications infrastructure in disasters • Mobile ad-hoc Networks (MANET) • Message loss and delays; • Coordination algorithms must be robust in response • Network-aware coordination

Future Challenges and Gaps Tiered Systems • Key enabler of sustainable military force is the notion of a tiered system • Lower Tiers (e.g., UAVs) may serve to provide critical intelligence, and serve as key cueing devices for other sensors. • Much more difficult information sharing and coordination problem Developing A Viable Approach for Effective Tiered Systems, NRL Memorandum Report 1001-07-9024, January 2007 [35 Authors Lab-wide]

Trident Warrior 2007 Experimentation (3/2007) • The ShareInfoForPeople portal underwent user experimentation during the Trident Warrior experimentation in March 2007. • Trident Warrior is a yearly exercise designed to provide a venue for technology experimentation that supports the Navy’s FORCEnet vision. • The focus of the experimentation in March addressed the area of Maritime Domain Awareness. • There were additional, related scenarios as a complement to MDA, and the ShareInfoForPeople portal was used by various civil and military groups to coordinate and share information in response to a hypothetical scenario consisting of a bird-flu outbreak on the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of West Africa. • The portal was used by various groups from the NGO community as well as those from Commander, Second Fleet in response to the events in the scenario. • Through participation in this experiment, we were afforded an opportunity to collect relevant feedback from the civil and military communities in order to improve the future capabilities of our portal.

Noble Resolve 07-2 (8/2007) • Objective 1: • Demonstrate and Examine information sharing solutions applicable to preventive and Consequence Management HD/HS scenarios. • Objective 2: • Combine real world and simulated track data and display that combined data on a Common Operational Picture (COP) tool accessible by Federal, State, Local, Tribal, International, Private and Non-Government Organizations (FSLTIPN).

Noble Resolve 07-2 Experiment(8/2007) NR 07-2 Objective #1 Identify and examine collaborative and information sharing solutions applicable to Homeland Defense scenarios. Demonstrate specific solutions. Collaboration Information Environment

Longer Term Goals • Promote, encourage, and incentivize sharing • Achieve an extended enterprise • Strengthen agility to accommodate unanticipated partners and events • Ensure trust across organizations • Approaches to achieve the goals: • Info Sharing Value Chain (Discover/Collect, Process, Analyze, Integrate, Inform, and Act) • Info Mobility (Technology, Social Networks, Policies, and Security) • Info Sharing as Force Multiplier (Volume- amount of data, Veracity- relevance/assured, Velocity- timeliness, and Vector- cross-domain/boundaries) • Promote Federated Info Sharing Community • Address Economic Reality of Info Sharing (Budget Process, Resource Allocation, and Incentives- return on investment)

ShareInfoForPeople Team

Acknowledgements • The funding for ShareInfoForPeople.org is funded by the Office of Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration (OSD-NII)

Unclassified Information Sharing and Coordination in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief