Computer Science and the Crisis

In the article ‘Information technology and the crisis: How IT concepts support the intelligence cycle in early crisis warning’ (only in German) in Spektrum Informatik, Uwe Borghoff and Christian Nitzl discuss the supporting role of information technology in early crisis warning.

Information technology plays a central role in a data-driven world. Using the example of early crisis warning, the link between various scientific disciplines and computer science is outlined. The intelligence cycle of the intelligence services serves as an overarching concept of information processing, which illustrates how information and ultimately intelligence - i.e. decision-making knowledge - can be generated from data. Decision knowledge is based on validated correlations, which then lead to recommendations for action. This article argues that computer science should not be understood solely in technical terms, in the sense of data generation, storage, processing and visualisation, but must also be seen in relation to the object to be depicted.

The article can be downloaded here.