author={S. Escalera and J. Gonz {\a} lez and X. Bar {\'o} and M. Reyes and I. Guyon and V. Athitsos and HJ Escalante and L. Sigal and A. Argyros and C. Sminchisescu and R. Bowden and S. Sclaroff},

Geospatial information systems (GIS) provide a central infrastructure for computer supported crisis management in terms of database, analytical models and visualisation tools, but the user interfaces of such systems are still hard to use, and do not address the special needs of crisis managers who often work in teams and make judgements and decisions under stress. This paper articulates the overall challenges for effective GIS interfaces to support crisis management in three dimensions: immediacy, relevance and sharing. These three requirements are addressed by an integrated approach, taking a human-GIS interaction perspective. To demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, we cite our prototype system, DAVE_G (Dialogue-Assisted Visual Environment for Geoinformaton), as an example. DAVE_G uses a large screen display to create a shared workspace among team members, and allows risk managers to interact with a GIS through natural multimodal (speech/gesture) dialogues.

Groups usually carry out science and decision-making activities involving geographic information. However, current mapping and related geospatial technologies are not group-friendly, and attempts to extend (or reinvent) technologies for group use have been largely ad hoc. Elsewhere, we have developed a comprehensive conceptual approach to geocollaboration that provides a framework for both studying collaborative work with geospatial information (and technologies) and the development of new technologies designed to support group work. We are applying that approach to a range of prototype systems that support same- and different-place as well as same- and different-time group activities.Our focus in this paper is on same-time, same-place group work environments that enable that work through use of large-screen displays supporting natural, human-system dialogue and multi-user interaction. Two environments are described and compared. Both make use of hand gestures as a mechanism for specifying display locations. One adopts a combined wall map/white board metaphor while the other adopts a drafting table metaphor. We focus on crisis management as a typical use case.

Collaboratories have been defined as centers without walls, virtual places where teams of scientists can undertake coordinated research. As part of the Human–Environment Regional Observatory (HERO) infrastructure project, we have been developing a geocollaboratory to support work by geographically distributed scientists about geographic problems. Our specific focus is on science teams developing and applying protocols for long-term study of the local and regional scale human impacts of global environmental change. The HERO geocollaboratory includes web and other Internet-based tools to enable same-time and different-time (thus synchronous and asynchronous) different-place collaboration. Methods and tools have been developed to support (1) synchronous distributed meetings that include video links and shared visual display of geospatial information; (2) asynchronous perspective comparison and consensus building activities; and (3) long-term information sharing and knowledge development. This paper introduces the research effort, sketches the conceptual framework within which the geocollaboratory is being developed, outlines progress thus far in the three collaboratory components listed above, and discusses our experiences using these tools for distributed science as well as our plans for continued development. We direct specific attention to three web-based, collaborative tools we have developed in support of components 2 and 3 above: an e-Delphi tool (supporting sharing and comparing of expert opinions), a concept-mapping tool that supports building, sharing, and comparing concept relationship diagrams linked to formal ontologies, and a web portal (called Codex) that provides a personal workspace, mechanisms for forming groups and accessing group resources, and methods for encoding knowledge objects that include geographic referencing.

This paper reviews the concept of the Living Laboratory and the potential impact of this framework on research perspectives, the design and approach of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems, and application to specific domains such as emergency crisis management. The main purpose behind the present research is to inform the development of distributed collaborative technology prototypes from multiple perspectives. Given the scope and depth of the CSCW research paradigm, McNeese and colleagues put forth the Living Laboratory Framework to promote an interdisciplinary view of how computers can support cooperative work for complex, emergent situations. Research based on the Living Lab framework would provide understanding of the intentions, goals, values and beliefs that drive individual behavior in their related context, and likewise how intentions influence patterns of behavior in the context of teamwork. This paper demonstrates how the Living Laboratory framework can be applied to a complete research program, and how it aids in the development of envisioned designs of collaborative technology that can facilitate distributed cognition within real world contexts where teamwork involves various levels of complexity.

Managing crises requires collecting geographical intelligence and making spatial decisions through collaborative efforts among multiple, distributed agencies and task groups. Crisis management also requires close coordination among individuals and groups of individuals who need to collaboratively derive information from geospatial data and use that information in coordinated ways. However, geospatial information systems do not currently support group work and can not meet the information needs of crisis managers. This paper describes a group interface for geographical information system, featuring multimodal human input, conversational dialogues, and same-time, different place communications among teams.

Crisis events have dramatic impact on human society, economy and our environment. Geographical information and intelligence play a key role in crisis management activities. However, the use of geographical information technologies in responsible government agencies has been mostly confined to single users, and within single agency. An interdisciplinary team from Penn State University (comprised of GIScientists, information scientists, and computer scientists) has joined efforts with collaborators from federal, state, and local agencies to develop advanced geospatial information technologies that support GeoCollaborative Crisis Management (GCCM). In this demonstration, we present our progress in the design and implementation of a GIS-mediated collaborative environment that enables crisis managers and collaborating agencies to work together with geographical information. The system features multimodal interactions, mixed-initiative conversational dialogues, and map-mediated communication. It can be used by managers in emergency operation centers (EOC) as well as first responders in the field.

This paper describes the continued development of a scaled-world simulation designed to conduct empirical research on team cognition and decision-making within a distributed environment. The NeoCITIES simulation was created to study decision-making and the impact of hidden knowledge profiles on team performance within a distributed command, control, and communications (C3) setting. NeoCITIES has been designed for the purpose of representing both new and operationally relevant scaled worlds, while emulating the complexities and attributes of emergent decision-making scenarios involving emergent counterterrorism events. Because patterns of activity emerge across time, knowledge is often hidden and disconnected within and across teams. NeoCIITES has been orchestrated to assess and evaluate the extent to which teams can socially construct knowledge while ineteracting through various means of technological support. Specifically, NeoCITIES is an interactive computer program designed to display information pertaining to events and occurrences in a virtual city space. The teams in the simulation represent three separate services (e.g., Police, Fire/EMS, and Hazmat) in which they must assess situations, interact and communicate according to their inter-team and intra-team roles, allocate resources in a timely manner, and make decisions within the context of emergency crisis management. Once NeoCITIES development has been completed, the simulation will be used as an experimental task to measure the impact of hidden knowledge profiles on teamwork and decision-making in the distributed team context.

Current computing systems do not support human work effectively. They restrict human-computer interaction to one mode at a time and are designed with an assumption that use will be by individuals (rather than groups), directing (rather than interacting with) the system. To support the ways in which humans work and interact, a new paradigm for computing is required that is multimodal, rather than unimodal, collaborative,e, rather than personal, and dialogue-enabled, rather than unidirectional. To address this challenge, we have developed an approach for designing natural, multimodal, multiuser dialogue-enabled interfaces to geographic information systems that make use of large-screen displays and integrated speech-gesture interaction. After outlining our goals and providing a brief overview of relevant literature, we introduce the Dialogue-Assisted Visual Environment for Geoinformation (DAVE_G). DAVE_G is being developed using a human-centred systems approach that contextualizes development and assessment in the current practice of potential users. In keeping with this human-centred approach, we outline a user task analysis and associated scenario development that implementation is designed to support (grounded in the context of emergency response), review our own precursors to the current prototype system and discuss how the current prototype extends upon past work, provide a detailed description of the architecture that underlies the current system, and introduce the approach implemented for enabling mixed-initiative human-computer dialogue. We conclude with a discussion of goals for future research.

Geovisualization is both a process for leveraging the data resources to meet scientific and societal needs and a research field that develops visual methods and tools to support a wide array of geospatial data applications. While researchers have made substantial advances in geovisualization over the past decade, many challenges remain. To support real-world knowledge construction and decision making, some of the most important challenges involve distributed geovisualization - that is, enabling geovisualization across software components, devices, people, and places.

Most work with geospatial data, whether for scientific analysis, urban and environmental planning, or business decision making is carried out by groups. In contrast, geographic information technologies have been built and assessed only for use by individuals. In this paper we argue that, to support collaboration with geospatial information, specific attention must be given to tools that mediate understanding and support negotiation among participants. In addition, we contend that visual representations have a particularly important role to play as mediators of geocollaborative activities. With these contentions as a starting point, we present a framework for study of visually-enabled collaboration with geospatial information and for development, implementation, and assessment of geoinformation technologies that support that collaboration. The paper concludes with a brief description of two prototype geocollaborative environments that illustrate the use of the framework developed and provide the basis for discussing goals for futher research.

A novel interface system for accessing geospatial data (GeoMIP) has been developed that realizes a user-centered multimodal speech/gesture interface for addressing some of the critical needs in crisis management. In this system we primarily developed vision sensing algorithms, speech integration, multimodality fusion, and rule-based mapping of multimodal user input to GIS database queries. A demo system of this interface has been developed for the Port Authority NJ/NY and is explained here.

oncept mapping has been used in multiple research domains for a variety of purposes such as brainstorming, knowledge elicitation, student testing and evaluation. Our work has applied the technique with pilots, emergency managers, emergency responders, and image analysts. Indeed, concept mapping has proven to be valuable both as an end state to represent and in turn understand knowledge, as well as the means to acquire knowledge from experts or users. This paper explores one path in the history of concept mapping use as a knowledge elicitation device, emphasizing its application in frameworks of knowledge acquisition. We conclude with proposed perturbations that help researchers account for spatio-temporal factors in task and event elicitation.

Real world settings frequently involve teamwork, computer systems embedded within a work setting, and multiple levels of complexity wherein distributed cognition (Hutchins, 1994) is highly prevalent. Complexity can grow and cause workers to lose control of situations when there are hidden constraints that shape cognitive/collaborative processes (Hollnagel, 1998; Rasmussen, Pejtersen, & Goodstein, 1994). Unfortunately, the technology (or computer tools) to support distributed cognition may not consider these dynamic, constraining conditions and in turn may cause critical failure or errors in the system. Two distinct connotations embedded within distributed cognition are important to assess and evaluate with respect to this issue. The first is that cognition is dispersed across time and space (i.e., teams collaborate remotely and independently). The second is that cognition is not confined within the head of an isolated, single individual but is constructed, situated, and distributed across team members, objects, and environments. The Living Lab framework (McNeese; in press) is an comprehensive, integrative approach for studying distributed cognition through a cyclic progression of ethnography, knowledge elicitation, scenario/scaled world development, and participant design to progressively deepen understanding of how constraints may shape collaborative activities within distributed work.. The Living Lab enacts a cognitive systems engineering methodology predicated on a). problem-based learning and b) shared construction of knowledge and design. The Living Lab (see Figure 1.) employs these elements incorporating both theory and practice to develop designs that promote intrinsic understanding from a user-centric perspective while being useful and usable (Woods, 1998).

Emergency response requires strategic assessment of risks, decisions, and communications that are time critical while requiring teams of individuals to have fast access to large volumes of complex information and technologies that enable tightly coordinated work. The access to this information by crisis management teams in emergency operations centers can be facilitated through various human-computer interfaces. Unfortunately, these interfaces are hard to use, require extensive training, and often impede rather than support teamwork. Dialogue-enabled devices, based on natural, multimodal interfaces, have the potential of making a variety of information technology tools accessible during crisis management. This paper establishes the importance of multimodal interfaces in various aspects of crisis management and explores many issues in realizing successful speech-gesture driven, dialogue-enabled interfaces for crisis management. This paper is organized in five parts. The first part discusses the needs of crisis management that can be potentially met by the development of appropriate interfaces. The second part discusses the issues related to the design and development of multimodal interfaces in the context of crisis management. The third part discusses the state of the art in both the theories and practices involving these human-computer interfaces. In particular, it describes the evolution and implementation details of two representative systems, Crisis Management (XISM) and Dialog Assisted Visual Environment for Geoinformation (DAVE/spl I.bar/G). The fourth part speculates on the short-term and long-term research directions that will help addressing the outstanding challenges in interfaces that support dialogue and collaboration. Finally, the fifth part concludes the paper.

Current mapping and related geospatial technologies are not designed to support group work and we have a limited theoretical or practical basis from which to extend (or reinvent) technologies for group use of geospatial information. To address the challenge of supporting group work with geospatial information, we have developed a comprehensive conceptual approach to geocollaboration and are applying that approach to a range of prototype systems that support both same- and different-place group activities. Our focus in this paper is on same-time, same-place group work environments that mediate distributed thinking and decision-making through use of large-screen displays supporting multi-user, natural interaction. Two environments will be described and compared. Both make use of hand gestures as a mechanism for specifying display locations. One adopts a white board metaphor while the other adopts a drafting table metaphor. We also consider two use cases: group data exploration (by scientists and analysts) and group decision-making (by crisis managers and planners).

This research presents an overview of the implementation strategies, results, and lessons learned from an onsite Work Domain Analysis for the design of a multimodal emergency management GIS for hurricane response. An overview of the onsite visits including details of the knowledge elicitation techniques used (e.g. critical incident analysis, concept mapping, and design storyboarding [19],[12]) will be presented. Feedback on the process itself will be discussed, along with an individual example of the use of the concept mapping technique in the creation of realistic scenarios for system design. Finally, recommendations for streamlining the techniques for use in other GIScience domains will be presented for consideration.