APTIMA INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: Extensive research on individual workload exists, and we know much about how to measure an

Description

Extensive research on individual workload exists, and we know much about how to measure and assess individual workload. However, no satisfactory model of workload or approach to assessing workload exists for teams. Furthermore, no approach to assessing team workload represents the dynamic, multidimensional characteristics of the team environment; especially when individual members are distributed. Aptima, therefore, proposes to develop a System for Workload Evaluation of Distributed Teams (SWEDT) a multivariate measurement approach to assessing workload in distributed and collocated teams. SWEDT will collect and aggregate a multivariate set of measures (e.g., physiological, behavioral, self-report, communications) at the individual and team levels, and integrate those data with contextual information about the mission, tasking, and health of the communications network to assess a team"s workload. SWEDT will utilize operational definitions of team workload and team workload assessment to develop a conceptual model of team workload to serve as the basis for the development of multivariate measures of team and individual workload. SWEDT will leverage existing measurement and assessment technologies to gather data from distributed team members and compute assessments of team and individual workload at critical points throughout a mission exercise.