Richard McMaster

Distributed situation awareness in dynamic systems: theoretical development and application of an ergonomics methodology

The purpose of this paper is to propose foundations for a theory of situation awareness based on the analysis of interactions between agents (i.e. both human and non-human) in subsystems. This approach may help to promote a better understanding of technology-mediated interaction in systems, as well as helping in the formulation of hypotheses and predictions concerning distributed situation awareness. It is proposed that agents within a system each hold their own situation awareness, which may be very different from (although compatible with) that of other agents. It is argued that we should not always hope for, or indeed want, sharing of this awareness, as different system agents have different purposes. This view marks situation awareness as a dynamic and collaborative process binding agents together on tasks on a moment-by-moment basis. Implications of this viewpoint for the development of a new theory of, and accompanying methodology for, distributed situation awareness are offered.

What really is going on? Review of situation awareness models for individuals and teams

The concept of situation awareness (SA) is frequently described in the literature. Theoretically, it remains predominantly an individual construct and the majority of the models presented describe SA from an individual perspective. In comparison, team SA has received less attention. SA in complex, collaborative environments thus remains a challenge for the human factors community, both in relation to the development of theoretical perspectives and of valid measures and to the development of guidelines for system, training and procedure design. This article presents a review and critique of what is currently known about SA and team SA, including a comparison of the most prominent individual and team models presented in the literature. In conclusion, it is argued that recently proposed systems level distributed SA approaches are the most suited to describing and assessing SA in real world, collaborative environments.

Command and control in emergency services operations: a social network analysis

There is increasing interest in the use of social network analysis as a tool to study the performance of teams and organizations. In this paper, processes of command and control in the emergency services are explored from the perspective of social network theory. We report a set of network analyses (comprising visualization, a selection of mathematical metrics, and a discussion of procedures) based on the observation of six emergency service incidents: three fire service operations involving the treatment of hazardous chemicals, and three police operations involving immediate response to emergency calls. The findings are discussed in terms of our attempts to categorize the network structures against a set of extant command and control network archetypes and the relationship between those structures; comments on the qualities the networks display are put into the contexts of the incidents reported. We suggest that social network analysis may have a valuable part to play in the general study of command and control.

Representing situation awareness in collaborative systems: A case study in the energy distribution domain

The concept of distributed situation awareness (DSA) is currently receiving increasing attention from the human factors community. This article investigates DSA in a collaborative real-world industrial setting by discussing the results derived from a recent naturalistic study undertaken within the UK energy distribution domain. The results describe the DSA-related information used by the networks of agents involved in the scenarios analysed, the sharing of this information between the agents and the salience of different information elements used. Thus, the structure, quality and content of each networks DSA is discussed, along with the implications for DSA theory. The findings reinforce the notion that when viewing situation awareness (SA) in collaborative systems, it is useful to focus on the coordinated behaviour of the system itself, rather than on the individual as the unit of analysis and suggest that the findings from such assessments can potentially be used to inform system, procedure and training design. SA is a critical commodity for teams working in industrial systems and systems, procedures and training programmes should be designed to facilitate efficient system SA acquisition and maintenance. This article presents approaches for describing and understanding SA during real-world collaborative tasks, the outputs from which can potentially be used to inform system, training programmes and procedure design.

Multi-agency operations: Cooperation during flooding.

This paper presents an investigation of command and control during Multi-Agency Operations; the purpose of this study was to elaborate on known themes associated with multi-agency emergency response, through a study of the successful combined military and civilian defence of Walham electricity substation from rising flood water in July 2007. This case study demonstrates that effective coordination during major emergencies requires the development of a deeper, shared understanding of the incident and a high level of trust between responding organisations, both of which are effortful to achieve and difficult to support with current communications systems. Adoption of a sociotechnical systems approach during the development process may enable future communications systems to support these important social processes.

Using social network analysis and agent-based modelling to explore information flow using common operational pictures for maritime search and rescue operations

The concept of common operational pictures (COPs) is explored through the application of social network analysis (SNA) and agent-based modelling to a generic search and rescue (SAR) scenario. Comparing the command structure that might arise from standard operating procedures with the sort of structure that might arise from examining information-in-common, using SNA, shows how one structure could be more amenable to ‘command’ with the other being more amenable to ‘control’ – which is potentially more suited to complex multi-agency operations. An agent-based model is developed to examine the impact of information sharing with different forms of COPs. It is shown that networks using common relevant operational pictures (which provide subsets of relevant information to groups of agents based on shared function) could result in better sharing of information and a more resilient structure than networks that use a COP. Practitioner Summary: SNA and agent-based modelling are used to compare different forms of COPs for maritime SAR operations. Different forms of COP change the communications structures in the socio-technical systems in which they operate, which has implications for future design and development of a COP.

Distributed Decision Making in Multihelicopter Teams: Case Study of Mission Planning and Execution from a Noncombatant Evacuation Operation Training Scenario

This article presents a naturalistic case study of distributed decision making across military helicopter crews during mission planning and execution scenarios. The aim of the paper was to model the decision making strategies and examine the extent to which the environment supports the helicopter crews. This involved live observation of the crews of five Royal Air Force helicopters as they planned and executed a series of missions in a simulated operational setting as part of their predeployment training. The study revealed that there were differences in the decision-making strategies in colocated and distributed teams. It also showed that colocated teams were more able to resolve information conflicts than were the distributed teams. These findings suggest that the concept of the “death of distance” (i.e., that information and communications technology can overcome the negative effects of distributed teams) is somewhat overstated.

Development of a generic activities model of command and control

This paper reports on five different models of command and control. Four different models are reviewed: a process model, a contextual control model, a decision ladder model and a functional model. Further to this, command and control activities are analysed in three distinct domains: armed forces, emergency services and civilian services. From this analysis, taxonomies of command and control activities are developed that give rise to an activities model of command and control. This model will be used to guide further research into technological support of command and control activities.

Distributed Situation Awareness in Command and Control: A Case Study in the Energy Distribution Domain

Distributed Situation Awareness (DSA), in terms of structure and knowledge content, distribution, sharing and usage, has important implications for command and control infrastructure design, network configuration, performance and efficiency. Despite this, theory and methods for evaluating DSA in complex sociotechnical systems are currently lacking. This article presents a novel methodology for assessing DSA, along with a case study of DSA in the energy distribution domain. The Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST) methodology was used to analyse three scenarios undertaken on a major UK electricity distribution network. In conclusion, an analysis of propositional knowledge networks indicated that DSA effectively ‘coupled’ the command and control networks observed. DSA comprised ‘activated’ knowledge objects that were held by, and shared between, the agents involved. Further, analysis of knowledge usage indicated that each agent involved possessed disparate but complementary levels of situation awareness during task performance.

Macrocognition in Day-To-Day Police Incident Response.

Using examples of incidents that UK Police Forces deal with on a day-to-day basis, we explore the macrocognition of incident response. Central to our analysis is the idea that information relating to an incident is translated from negotiated to structured and actionable meaning, in terms of the Community of Practice of the personnel involved in incident response. Through participant observation of, and interviews with, police personnel, we explore the manner in which these different types of meaning shift over the course of incident. In this way, macrocognition relates to gathering, framing, and sharing information through the collaborative sensemaking practices of those involved. This involves two cycles of macrocognition, which we see as ‘informal’ (driven by information gathering as the Community of Practice negotiates and actions meaning) and ‘formal’ (driven by the need to assign resources to the response and the need to record incident details). The examples illustrate that these cycles are often intertwined, as are the different forms of meaning, in situation-specific ways that provide adaptive response to the demands of the incident.