Towards an Adaptive Question Answering System for Intelligence Analysts

Abstract

Battelle is working in partnership with Stanford University's Knowledge Systems Laboratory (KSL) and IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center to develop a suite of technologies for knowledge discovery, knowledge extraction, knowledge representation, automated reasoning, and human information interaction, in unison entitled “Knowledge Associates for Novel Intelligence” (KANI). We have developed an integrated analytic environment composed of a collection of analyst associates, software components that aid the analyst at different stages of the analytical process. In this paper, we discuss our efforts in the research, design and implementation of the question answering elements of the Information Interaction Associate. Specifically, we focus on the techniques employed to produce an effective user interface to these elements. In addition, we touch upon the methodologies we intend to use to empirically evaluate our approach with active intelligence analysts.

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