A first cut of the military QoI attribute space and hypothesis structure for abductive reasoning

Abstract

The concept of quality of information (QoI) provides a focus for developing and evaluating information gathering and situational awareness (SA) assessment methods. Effective prima facie estimates of accuracy, latency and trustworthiness are essential elements in the assessment of an information product delivered to, for example, a decision maker charged with timely and accurate identification of targets. QoI must support reasoning under conditions of uncertainty and conflict, which is a motivation for the application of abductive reasoning. This type of reasoning evokes hypotheses for ground truth that include the characteristics of the subject matter, contexts, producers and channels of information products. For our purposes, hypotheses are to be tested using a model related in intent to the enterprise QoI space of Wang et al, but which must take into consideration a significantly richer set of uncertainties resulting from the complexity and range of military activities that may require concurrent evaluation. This paper and accompanying poster begin to define that space.