VR and Virtual internships and VR for Crisis Management

The Australian Crisis Simulation Summit at the Australian National University has wrapped up after a successful week's hard work. One reason I volunteered to mentor, was to see how this was done. I have done some training at Australian Staff College, back in the days when bits of paper were used, and wanted to see how teaching in this area has evolved. Some of these techniques might be used for computer students.

What was most striking about the ACSS, was the use of video conferencing for a hybrid mode. Base of operations was in Canberra, but with groups of students, and some presenters, distributed around Australia, and a couple of US universities. This format fitted well with the subject matter. The students at each remote site were playing the role of a government agency crisis team. In reality, each team would be communicating with their counterparts electronically. Those in the main venue were in separate rooms, and also used electronic means to communicate.

Conducttr crisis simulation software was used for the simulated news items, and social media. Zoom was used for 24 hour news service. Microsoft Teams was used for team to team video. Google dos was used for group document preparation. It might be worth considering the use of a tool such as Slack, which could incorporate all these functions. However, the use of the tools which are used in the real workplace is worthwhile.

It might be interesting to include specialist technical students in the simulations. This one features cyber security, satellites, submarines and other defence related technology. One of the problems experienced in a real crisis is to quickly get usable, understandable, relevant advice from experts. It would be useful to have teams of law, computer, and engineering students practicing providing time critical advice. 

A professional media company, Shoelace Creative, was brought in to produce live TV news for the simulations, using a student with media experience as the interviewer.  For smaller scale events, this might be replaced with an AI newsreader.

A difficult question is if such simulations could be incorporated into the curriculum. This requires assessment. There is a risk that assessing the simulation would take the fun out of it for the students, and the external mentors. I suggest this could be handled in a similar way to internships: documents generated as part of the process are used for group assessment, plus an individual personal reflection. Rubrics can be used to reduce the burden of assessment for staff. 

Some VR and AR might make the simulations more realistic. One gimmick demonstrated at EduTech 2023 Australia recently was a hologram-like booth, which showed a remote presenter. A simpler form of this could be done by positioning a conventional flat screen behind a podium, so the presenter appears to be standing there. 

Cyberwar Breaks Out at Australian Crisis Simulation

ACSS Domestic Briefing, 
in the ANU Moot Court.
Photo by Tom Worthington CC-BY 2023

Greetings from the Australian Crisis Simulation Summit at in the Moot Court at the Australian National University in Canberra. Game play became very interesting in the last round, when one team took a fake news item as real and spread it through the government agencies, causing confusion and consternation. The game masters discussed intervening. I suggested letting the game run as this was a very realistic possibility and a good learning experience. But this was disrupting the play, and so a mentor provided some advice to teams to get things back on track. 

ANU Moot Court  tea urn & banana, 
Photo by Tom Worthington CC-BY 2023

Today is "domestic" with a focus on crisis in Australia, rather than the region. Ominously, the head game-master quoted General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Order of the Day (1944) "You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. ...". Amidst this drama I noticed the ANU's Moot Court was equipped with a tea urn, and a banana. ;-)

More drama occurred at the start of the domestic simulation, with a system glitch. This required the team to reschedule, and also was a useful learning experience of what happens when you depend on a computer based system.

Last night there was a celebration with Canberra participants, and sponsors. This was a slightly unusual combination of glamour event, with representatives from allied government, and displays from secret government agencies (who recruit the students). 

Cyber Crisis Simulated

James Weatherman interviewing
Tom Worthington on SBC. CC-BY 

Greetings from the Australian Crisis Simulation Summit at in the Moot Court at the Australian National University in Canberra. A scripted simulated cyber attack has just happened, and the pretend company representative is being interviewed on the fictional SBC (Summit Broadcasting Corporation). I thought the student playing the role was putting on a fake american accent, but it turns out they are in a team at a US university. Earlier in the day I was interviewed. The fake news channel is being provided by Shoelace Creative, with one of the studnts providing the news anchor. 

This infrastructure takes a lot of work. A lower effort way to do this would be with a synthetic newsreader, working from a prepared script.

Crisis in the Moot Court

Briefing in the ANU Moot Court.
Tom Worthington CC-BY 2023

Greetings from the Australian Crisis Simulation Summit at in the Moot Court at the Australian National University in Canberra. A team of ANU students are running simulations of national security situations (with cyber-attacks, grey-zone & information warfare, plus natural disasters), for teams students across Australia to respond to in real time. I am mentoring some local teams, using my experience working at HQ ADF. 

The Moot Court turns out to be ideally suited to running such an exercise. The main room, which is set up like a mock courtroom is used for briefings, which are sent out via Zoom. The setup resembles the sort of government briefing rooms used for real briefings. The room has a folding wall which has been deployed, so one crisis team can work in half the room. Outside is an area used for breaks. Opposite are two small Harvard style tutorial rooms, being used for smaller mentor briefings, and team work. There is a glass walled kitchen at one side of the tutorial rooms, which the student team is using as their HQ. This way they can look out to see what is happening. 

The students are wearing black lanyards resembling those worn by public servants, adding to the authenticity. Some have earpieces and walkie-talkies, looking very James Bond. ;-)

ps: It easy to dismiss the simulation as just a training exercise, and the students as just students. But some of the students work in major government security agencies, and the mentors have experience in various government roles. The scenarios they have prepared are disturbingly close to current regional and world events. At the outbreak of the Falklands War the UK Royal Marines were conducting Mountain and Arctic Warfare training. The class and trainers were sent to the Falklands to put the training into immediate practice. Hopefully a crisis in the region will not require the ACSS participants to do the same.

Crisis Simulation for Teaching Next Generation of Leaders

Barrie & Worthington
in ACSS Control Room, CC-BY 29/8/2023

Greetings from the Control Room of the Australian Crisis Simulation Summit at the Australian National University in Canberra. There is a team of ten students sitting at computers, in a horseshoe shaped room running through the scenarios. Next week, 100 students in teams around Australia and the USA will respond to these in real time. It is not quite as high-tech as the control room in the Hunger Games, but works much the same way. 

The game-masters are using Conducttr crisis simulation software, coordinating the release of made up news reports, and social media posts about a fictional future crisis. While all the teams participating share the same simulated world view, they have different scenarios to respond to. These involve cyber and kinetic (stuff blowing up) attacks, and the participants need to work out what to do. There are then scripted events to keep the participants busy.

I have the role of a mentor, pro diving advice to the game-masters and participants. This is a new experience. I have participated in a paper based version of a simulation at what is now Australian War College (AWC), but on a much smaller scale. Next to me providing advice is the patron for the ACSS, Professor Admiral Chris Barrie.

The scenarios the students have prepared are set about a decade in the future. Even so they reflect current events, to the extent when someone mentioned a Chinese submarine may be missing, I had to ask "Is this real world or exercise?". 

I am mentoring, for ACSS, using my experience from working at DoD. But also I would like to see how such exercises can be incorporated as part of student's formal learning and assessment. I talked about  "Projects & internships for student employability" at EduTECH, Australia last week. Simulations can provide a form of quicker, work relevant learning.