Purpose Statement

The Department of Defense (DoD) has made great advances in the use of modeling and simulation (M&S) across the Services and other functional communities of interest such as training, testing, healthcare, transportation, etc. While M&S-based support is increasingly relevant, M&S initiatives and the M&S discipline itself are affected by declining defense budgets or programmatic obstacles, a shortage of defense M&S-professionals and subject matter experts, continued reliance on legacy M&S assets, and slow adoption of emergent technologies. A proposed workshop on DoD M&S at the MODSIM World 2014 conference presents an opportunity for M&S stakeholders to expand current thinking and to identify new enterprise approaches for improving stewardship of M&S. This workshop could discuss areas relevant to DoD M&S such as human capital development, open source utilization, resource repository responsiveness, broad standards, and architecture frameworks.

How You Can Help

NTSA and the MODSIM World Conference Coordinators are soliciting defense M&S professionals’ views to gain a sense of the issues most pertinent or relevant to the M&S community. We would appreciate it if you would take several minutes to answer the questions below. The results will not be attributed and planned attendance at the MODSIM World 2014 conference is not required to respond. The responses will help us gauge concerns and support framing the workshop to produce actionable objectives for defense M&S advocacy and stewardship. Survey results will be evaluated and a small number of respondents will be invited to present their perspectives/advocacy at the conference 15-17 April 2014.

Major discussion areas during the workshop will be reviewed by a panel of M&S experts and Community/Industry representatives. Recommendations will be made available to the National Modeling and Simulation Coalition, MODSIM World planners, NTSA and NDIA. A summary of the findings from the workshop will be made available on the Conference website for all survey respondents. The ultimate goal of the workshop is to catalyze cooperation and strengthen DoD stewardship and application of our critical M&S capabilities.

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1. Sector

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2. What is your role with regards to M&S? Please check all that apply.

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3. Size of your organization?

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4. Functional Area? Check all that apply.

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5. Predominant M&S Activity? Check all that apply.

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6. What would you say is the greatest challenge to Defense M&S over the next 5-10 years? Check all that apply.

Open Systems Architectures (see Open Systems Architecture Contract Guidebook for Program Managers, Version 1.1, May 2013) are one of many technologies being offered as solutions to enhance M&S interoperability and reduce cost and maintenance. Open Systems can mean different things to different people and be one of those “I’ll know it when I see it” characteristics. Two features do, however, stand out as necessary -- a viable technical architecture and an effective business model.

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7. Technical Architecture

What are the three (3) most important investment areas and characteristics to attain an open architecture?

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8. Business Model

Managing M&S development and operation involves more than just hardware and software. What are the three (3) most important areas/initiatives from your viewpoint?

Below are several themes for which we would like to know your organization’s position. Are these areas of interest to your organization?

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9. Standards

What is the view of your organization about the sufficiency of current technical standards to develop, interface, and/or apply M&S tools, data, and services?

Please rate the sufficiency of current technical standards on a scale of 1 (totally insufficient) to 9 (absolutely sufficient).

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Sufficiency of Standards

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10. Metadata.

Identifying and using resources through automated methods usually requires encoding (using ontologies, XML, etc.) information. What is the view of your organization about the importance of creating or using metadata for M&S?

Please rate the importance of creating or using metadata for M&S on a scale of 1 (not at all important) to 9 (extremely important).

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Creating or using metadata for M&S

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11. Visibility, Discoverability, and Accessibility

Many organizations have created M&S catalogs and repositories to facilitate efficiency, only to see them become dated or fall into disuse. What is the view of your organization about the importance of M&S catalogs and repositories?

Please rate the importance of M&S catalogs and repositories on a scale scale of 1 (not at all important) to 9 (extremely important).

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M&S catalogs and repositories

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12. Reuse

Reuse is a perennial goal, but difficult to define. What is the view of your organization on the importance of using a previously developed asset, either for its originally developed purpose, or for a new purpose, or in a new context?

Please rate the importance of reuse on a scale of 1 (not at all important) to 9 (extremely important).

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Reuse

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13. Information Assurance

What is the view of your organization on the importance of information assurance in the development and execution of M&S?

Please rate the importance of information assurance on a scale of 1 (not at all important) to 9 (extremely important).

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Information Assurance

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14. Verification, Validation, and Accreditation (VV&A)

What is the view of your organization on the adequacy of current processes for determining the “fitness for the purpose” of a model or simulation?

Please rate the adequacy of current VV&A processes on a scale of 1 (totally inadequate) to 9 (more than adequate).

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Adequacy of current VV&A processes

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15. M&S Conceptual Modeling

What is the view of your organization on the relevance of properly bounding a problem space, ascertaining decision-oriented intended uses, and objectively specifying the components of a proposed simulation system?

Please rate the importance of M&S Conceptual Modeling on a scale of 1 (not at all important) to 9 (extremely important).

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M&S Conceptual Modeling

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16. What technologies does your organization believe will have the strongest effect on the development of M&S in the short term, intermediate term, or long term? (Expand text box as needed, but please keep your answer to 500 words or less.)

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17. What are the most pressing M&S issues faced by your organization that challenge the effectiveness and efficiency of your M&S efforts? (Expand text box as needed, but please keep your answer to 500 words or less.)

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18. If asked, would you - as an individual or as part of a team - be willing to present your advocacy perspectives in the DoD Workshop at the MODSIM World 2014 Conference?

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