VALCRI · Visual Analytics for Sense-making in CRiminal Intelligence analysis

The purpose of Project VALCRI is to create a Visual Analytics-based sense-making capability for criminal intelligence analysis by developing and integrating a number of technologies into a coherent working environment for the analyst we call the Reasoning Workspace. Conceptually, the Reasoning Workspace comprises three areas: (i) a Data Space which will enable an analyst to see what data and themes exist, (ii) an Analysis Space to which data can be brought into to carry out various computational analyses including statistical and text analysis, and (iii) a Hypothesis Space that will enable the analysts to assemble their evidence into coherent arguments that lead to meaningful and valid conclusions.The user interface will be rooted in the concepts of Visual Analytics – the emerging “… science of analytical reasoning facilitated by visual interactive interfaces"" (Thomas and Cook, 2004), and specially designed to support the interactive dynamics (Heer and Shneiderman, 2012) required to enable real-time analytic interaction with data. The design of the user interface will move away from the traditional windows and list of lists views for presenting data, and instead to create information objects that may be directly manipulated and freely organised visuo-spatially by the analysts so that location and spatial groupings have meaning and can be manipulated directly by selection and dragging