A--Principles of Training Junior and Mid-level Soldiers in Skills for Horizontal Integration of Information

NA Defense Contracting Command Washington intends, on behalf of Army Research Institute, to negotiate a purchase order, on a sole source basis, with Klein Associates, Inc. The period of performance will be for nine months. Klein Associates offers a unique a nd unmatched set of capabilities within their firm to support ARI's requirement for the investigation the functional competencies necessary for soldiers to be members of digital networks. Highly experienced personnel have extensive experience with challen ges faced by the Army and with best practices/lessons learned from work very similar to the current requirement under Contract Number DASW01-99-C-0002. Specifically, Klein Associate's team has a full range of experts with essential skills in training comp lex cognitive competencies needed for soldiers to operate successfully in asynchronous digital environments. These skills place Klein Associates in a unique position to analyze changing requirements for training soldiers in future non face-to-face operati ons. Products are needed about how to effectively and efficiently train and sustain the soldier's functional, digital, and network skills needed to insure mission success for the Army's modernization/digization initiative and transition to the Objective F orce. Objective of Effort: Define methods and principles to train soldiers/system operators to excel at their job functions as part of ad hoc teams in network-collaborative environments. Define conditions for training them to operate through networks wi th unfamiliar soldiers in non face-to-face interactions across different organizational entities. That is, how can training achieve horizontal integration across branches for carrying out common functional operations? This objective will be accomplished by these tasks: Task 1--Review, comment on, and provide recommendations for research plans that assess how performance variables in network-collaborative environments impact successful task performance. One area of consideration will be a Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) of stimulus materials such as games. Task 2--Recomment, based on the research literature, variables/methods that either impede or facilitate collaboration across job functions in network-collaborative environments and suggested training met hods/procedures that enhance performance in this environment. the emphasis will be on Army network-collaborative environments. Task 3--Provide descriptions and work-ups of future research needs pertaining to training functional competencies needed by ind ividuals to perform effectively in net-collaborative environments, including challenges envisioned with training the Future Combat System. POC: Carolyn Baltimore, Contract Specialist, +1 (555) 000-0000, Email: contact@example.gov See FedBizOpps Note 22.