1. Group 3 Opium in Afghanistan or It’s better than Excedrin!

2. Question reformulation (otherwise known as “bollixing it up”) Analyst question 1: “what process is used to produce opium?” –Immediately broken down into: chemicals, seeds, soil type, climatic factors, labor, machinery, harvesting… Researcher reformulation: “what is the process of opium production in Afghanistan?” –Strategy: try general overview first; see what is easily found Oracle/system response: “do you want –Opium production process –Opium production in Afghanistan?” A good system knows when it answers only part of the Q Do you first ask a general Q? Reformulation added too much specificity Analyst rapidly develops plan of attack, which becomes report structure System needs to know what kind of A to deliver

3. Process continued AQ2: “what areas currently produce opium?” RR: “in what areas of Afghanistan is opium produced?” OR: Map with drug-growing areas highlighted, and related chart AQ 2a: “give me raw data, raster overlays of where cultivation is possible” RR: “in what areas is growth of opium possible? [in GIS]” OR: no response Analyst wants to specify media; system should handle Analyst knew there are people at NIMA; system should provide links to experts when they are found

4. Input For a new task, provide context / background –Keywords, documents, etc. –Personal expertise profile (languages spoken, etc.) –Session plan/profile  evolving answer doc Provide current goal –Early on, in long-term study  prefer longer/discursive answer –Then, or for quick question  prefer shorter/factoid/table answer Ask question! Provide additional constraints –Data type –Source: web, NIMA, etc. –Date: last 2 days, past month, past year, etc. textmapnumberscharttime series anything Context: doc metadata Subtopic 1: XXXX Subtopic 2: YYY ZZZZ … “By which routes does processed opium leave Afghanistan?”

5. Output Goodness score AnswersData format Source, date, etc.… Experts 0.87“summary”textWeb 11/93 www.abc.gov Joe 0.75“summary”text+picsCIA Set J 3/4/03 Martha 0.72mapNIMA current Steve, 344- 827-9199 Related info “summary”textWeb 12/2/01

6. One thought: evolving document TOPIC: Opium in Afghanistan ANALYST: Jeff DATE: 6/11/03 TOPIC DESCRIPTION: “Write a report…” SUBTOPIC 1: production –“xxx xxxx xx xxxx xx” www.abc.com “yyy y yy yyy y”www.abc.com –“zzzz zz zz zzzz zz” –“pp ppp p pp p” SUBTOPIC 2: political/economic impact –“qq qq qqqq q qq” www.xx.yy.milwww.xx.yy.mil … Accessible to system: Can place new info properly Accessible to colleagues’ systems: can cross-reference

7. Some lessons General strategy of broad-to-narrow information search for this type of task, but the sequence of decomposition/subtopics differs by goal, analyst, and organization Both IR and QA technology are important, together with Info Management, GIS, etc. Maps (and other media) are crucial (exploration resources as well as results) Important metadata: source time, search time, attribution/sources, reliability, objectivity, justification, relevance, etc. Handling perspectives/contradictory/missing/partial/etc. info Question syntax, misspellings, etc.: systems must be smart/tolerant Use context to focus: general task, analyst profile, analytic perspective, etc. Integrate with other experts (internal and external) Maintain and use working document: Game Plan  final report