Wiki-based Estimative Analysis

Project
Due:
NO LATER THAN 11:59pm on 10 December 2008

Project Overview:
Throughout the course of this semester, you have developed two specialized areas
of expertise:

1. At least two critical infrastructure sectors in the United States

2. At least one major terrorist organization or movement

We are going to tap your expertise to produce an estimative analytical product

about the threat that a specific terrorist group/movement poses to US interests and
infrastructures within the 48 contiguous states, Alaska, and Hawaii. An estimative
analysis product is usually a document (report or monograph) that presents an
informed judgment about a single issue of great interest to national security,
presents the underlying evidence for that judgment, and examines alternative
hypotheses that compete with that judgment based on the available evidence. In
practice, an estimative analytical product is produced by a large team of analysts
and subject matter experts.

With the advent of the collaborative Internet (aka Web 2.0), there has been
considerable interest in changing the production process of analytical products to
improve overall analytic estimates through enhanced collaboration among analysts
and subject matter experts. Wikis have emerged as an ideal candidate platform for
producing collaborative analytical products and are now being pushed aggressively
within the US Intelligence community. For this project, you will be creating a wiki
that will estimate the threat posed by terrorist groups to the homeland security of
the United States.

You will be assigned to one of two teams. Each group will estimate the threat posed
by one of three terrorist groups/movements to each critical infrastructure sector
identified by Homeland Security. The groups/movements are:

• Al-Qaeda (Team 1)
• Radical Environmental and Animal Rights Groups/Movements (Team 2)
The Assignment:
Your group must create a wiki with AT LEAST the following pages:

• Main Page
○ Think of the main page as a roadmap to your wiki and the central
location for all main wiki links
• Executive Summary
○ This is the most important document in this project. It concisely defines
the issue being analyzed, the key judgments of the analysis, and any
alternative competing hypotheses that are justified by the evidence
but that might conflict/confound the key judgments
• Background on the Issue being Analyzed
○ Answers in this order What is the issue being analyzed, Why is it
being analyzed, Who is the focus of the analysis, What
areas/locations in the US or the world are most relevant to the
analysis, and What is the time frame covered in this analysis
• Group Profile
○ This page(s) describes the terrorist group you’re assigned and
organizes all the research collected on the group as follows:
 Name
 Date/Approximate Date of Founding
 Ideology/Stated Aims (very important that this section reflect
any statements/propaganda efforts that threaten/encourage
violence against critical infrastructure sectors)
 Background/History
 Key Leaders
 Modus Operandi/Operational History (very important that this
section reflect the group’s operations against critical
infrastructure sectors)
• One page for each Critical Infrastructure Sector
○ This page should have the following sections:
 Sector Description
 Judgment
• All judgments should begin with “We judge it to be (very
likely, likely, not likely) that _______ will attack the ______
critical infrastructure sector of the United States.”
• You then need to concisely explain why you believe this to
be true
 Supporting Evidence– you need to provide all the supporting
evidence for this judgment here. This evidence should primarily
 be statements/propaganda indicating an intent/desire to strike
the specific critical infrastructure and previous attacks on this
critical infrastructure
 Refuting Evidence – you need to cite any evidence that you find
that is contrary to or in contradiction of your judgment

• Alternative Competing Hypotheses

○ This section is where dissenting voices/opinions are recorded. So if
there is dissent in your group about the key judgments in your
analytical product, they need to be recorded here and cite the refuting
evidence that these alternative hypotheses are based on.

Wiki Evaluation:
This wiki project is 20% of your final grade in the course and will be evaluated as
follows:

50% - Overall Wiki

• 25% Completion of Required Pages

• 25% Quality of Executive Summary and Critical Infrastructure pages

50% - Individual Effort

• 25% Wiki contributions

• 25% Peer evaluations