International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The objective of the FIRST project is to define a modern DoD Standard Datalink capability. This defined capability or standard is to provide a solution to wide variety of test and training range digital data radio communications problems with a common set of components, flexible to fit a broad range of applications, yet be affordable in all of them. This capability is to be specially designed to meet the expanding range distances and data transmissions rates needed to test modern weapon systems. Presently, the primary focus of the project is more on software, protocols, design techniques and standards, than on hardware development. Existing capabilities, on going developments and emerging technologies are being investigated and will be utilized as appropriate. Modern processingintensive communications technology can perform many complex range data communications tasks effectively, but a large-scale development effort is usually necessary to exploit it to its full potential. Yet, range communications problems are generally of limited scope, so different from one another that a communication system applicable to all of them is not likely to solve any of them well. FIRST will resolve that dilemma by capitalizing on another feature of modern communications technology: its high degree of programmability. This can enable custom-tailoring of datalink operation to particular applications, just as a PC can be tailored to perform a multitude of diverse tasks, through appropriate selection of software and hardware components.

This dissertation employs both design science and behavioral science research paradigms to investigate an emerging form of technology-enabled human collective intelligence known as information markets. This work establishes a conceptual foundation for the study of organizational information markets and the design and use processes of information markets inside organizations. This research conceptualizes markets from an information systems perspective and presents an information systems research framework for organizational information markets. This work develops a systems theory of information markets to facilitate investigation of the relationships and interactions between markets as systems and their context of use. It proposes a structuration model for design and use of IT artifacts in organizations and applies it to the study of information markets. A framework of market users is developed to guide market design to satisfy the different motivational and informational needs of market users. A design based solution is proposed to an important open question in the information markets literature; how to generate sufficient uninformed trades. This research extends structuration theory by developing the structuration model of technology-induced organization development. A well-designed information market can generate several benefits to organizations that contribute to their growth and development. Due to the importance of software in everyday life, and the high costs and percentages of failure in software projects, this dissertation proposes an information market solution to help organizations better manage the risks facing software projects. It also develops a theoretical framework for the determinants of software project risk assessment accuracy and evaluates the market‘s efficacy in improving assessment accuracy via the use of controlled laboratory experiments. The results of the experiments demonstrate the market‘s efficacy in improving assessment accuracy by increasing the currency, accuracy and completeness of reported status information about project main objectives such as cost, schedule, performance and functionality. The results also demonstrate the market‘s efficacy in increasing individual willingness to report negative status information by decreasing their perception of information asymmetry between them and management/clients, and by increasing their perception of both the anonymity of the reporting mechanism and their perceived self-interest in reporting negative status information.