Introducing the Canadian Information Centric Workspace Concept

Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) is an evolving information operations (IO) concept in the Canadian Land Force. ISTAR provides the commander with a system to collect and process required information for producing intelligence on the threat and knowledge on the environment during operations, as well as the knowledge needed to identify, acquire, and engage targets. The various processes used to collect and analyze the information are the result of numerous individual systems, some of which have only been recently introduced in the field, while many others are still in development as a result of advances in the information age. This compendium of systems makes ISTAR a "System of Systems," as opposed to a single system. This paper presents the new Canadian Information-Centric Workspace concept that provides a more coherent information management approach to better support the Commander in both its tactical intelligence and operations activities at brigade level. The info-centric workspace concept aims at offering a seamless collaborative environment enabling the ISTAR staff to perform their tasks using different applications/services through a standardized Human Computer Interface (HCI). Twenty-one briefing charts summarize the presentation. (7 figures, 25 refs.)
See also ADM001673. Published in RTO-MP-IST-040. Presented at the Information Systems Technology Panel (IST) symposium on "Military Data and Information Fusion (La fusion des informations et de donnes militaires)" held in Prague, Czech Republic, on 20-22 Oct 2003. Prepared in collaboration with DMR Consulting, Sainte-Foy, Quebec, Canada. The original document contains color images.