
Organization for the Team Project
Team Project
The purpose of the project is to provide a compelling deep dive into geospatial intelligence analysis using a structured methodology. We will split into teams. Each team will take on a particular analytic question associated with the same problem. Through the exploration of the analytic question, we hope that each team gets a comprehensive understanding of a particular problem and in the use of a structured approach in the development of geospatial intelligence.
Course Project General Problem Area
The term project is to geospatially investigate the Jonathan Luna case.
Jonathan Luna was a Baltimore-based Assistant United States Attorney who was stabbed 36 times with his own penknife and found drowned in a creek in Pennsylvania. No suspects or motive for murder was determined. The federal authorities (FBI) lean towards calling it a (hypothesis 1) suicide but the local Lancaster County authorities, including two successive coroners, ruled it a (hypothesis 2) homicide. Your task is to (1) organize as a team to (2) assemble and (3) evaluate the geospatial evidence to determine if the evidence (including the geospatial aspects of the case) is consistent or inconsistent with the hypotheses. The following information is provided as a starting point in your geospatial analysis:
The Jonathan Luna Case Study: An Unsolved Mystery (Pherson Associates, LLC in 2006)
Anticipated Jonathan Luna Route (Pherson Associates, LLC in 2006)
Jonathan Luna Chronology (Pherson Associates, LLC in 2006)
Helpful Links (download)
Key Known Locations (download)
Project's Specific Objectives
- To apply the Structured Geospatial Analytical Method.
- To apply Structured Analytical Techniques.
- To evaluate and defend the results of a geospatial analysis.
- To collaborate in a team in the delineation, coordination, execution, and evaluation of individual analytic responsibilities as part of an overall effort providing (mutual) support, sharing resources, and constructive assessment of individual activities and findings.
Deliverables:
- Project Team Organization: Organize your team. Designate a team leader, as well as team roles such as data forager, sensemaker, analytical lead, and so forth. Provide your team list with roles to the instructor via Canvas email. The instructor will then create your team in Canvas.
- Brainstorming the geospatial aspects of a problem checksheet - use Luna. Link to checksheet
- Bibliography: An initial bibliography of possible applicable grounding material and sources.
Submission Instructions: Post deliverables 1, 2 and 3 in your Canvas Team Dropbox.
General List of Project Tasks and Deliverables:
- Lesson 2 – Project organization
- Deliverable: Your team's organization (or preparation for individual work)
- Deliverable: Brainstorming the geospatial aspects of a problem check sheet
- Deliverable: An initial expanded bibliography of possible applicable grounding material and sources
- Lesson 5 – Problem statement and application of an Imaginative Thinking Technique
- Deliverable: A succinct statement of the question you are investigating
- Deliverable: A summary of your use and results of an imaginative thinking technique
- Lesson 6 - Application of a Diagnostic Technique
- Deliverable: A summary of your use and results of a Diagnostic Technique
- Lesson 7 – Summary of the application of ACH and tentative conclusions
- Deliverable: A summary of your use of the Analysis of Competing Hypothesis (ACH) technique and the tentative conclusions
- Lesson 8 – Analyst challenge exercise
- Deliverable: Summarize the use of a Contrarian Technique and your results
- Lesson 10 – Finalize conclusions and develop milestones for future observation
- Deliverable: A presentation of approximately 40 minutes in length