Angler: Collaboratively Expanding your Cognitive Horizon

Abstract

Angler is a tool to help analysts explore, understand, and overcome biases that result from previous experiences and background, and to collaborate in expanding their joint cognitive vision. Angler utilizes divergent and convergent techniques, such as brainstorming and clustering or voting, to guide a diverse set of intelligence professionals in completing a complex knowledge task. The tool helps the group through the process of forming consensus, while preserving and quantifying differing ways of thinking. Angler provides a Web-based collaborative environment that allows users distributed by both time and geography to assemble in teams, with the help of a facilitator.