ANNEX to IMSMA (information obtained from the IMSMA web site, May 1st 2002)
Overview
Development of the IMSMA Field Module began in fall 1998. While the first release of the Field Module concentrated on covering the urgent need for providing humanitarian demining operations with Information Technology (IT) support, the current version and future development is designed to provide information management and operational support to all aspects of mine action.
Data Resources
Field Module Data Resources
The Field Module was defined and developed for use at country Mine action Center (MAC) and regional center levels. To fulfill the specific requirements of coordinating and performing Mine action activities, the United Nations developed and approved new international standards for humanitarian demining . The IMSMA Field Module was used as reference system for defining the new standards and is the only system available that complies with these standards. The IMSMA Field Module is the UN standard for Information Management at Mine action Centers.
The Field Module allows the Mine action Center to record, evaluate and visualize information. Considerable effort has gone into developing a comprehensive, easy to use system. Colors, pictures, tool-tips and graphic- as well as menu-driven system navigation support the user.. In addition, the Field Module is fully multilingual and can be translated by the user.
The IMSMA Field Module combines a relational database and a geographical information system (GIS) functionality. Based on Microsoft Office Professional 2000 and ArcView, the system provides very flexible functionalities based on commercial off the shelf software.
The following image demonstrates how the Field Module assists the user in the most important steps involved in identifying, prioritizing, clearing a mine or UXO infected area and showing the progress of these activities.
Mine action workflow
Click on image for a detailed view of the Field Module workflow.
Workflow
In addition to the activities described in the IMSMA workflow, the following functionality is part of the IMSMA Field Module
Incidents/Accidents
Accidents occurring during mine action activities and other accidents involving mines and/or unexploded ordnance. This information builds the basis for most victim assistance programs.
Tasking/Process management
The Field Module provides ready to use tools for the operations department to create and manage tasks that are handed to mine action organizations. Activities are tracked within a virtual task folder and specific GIS functionality enables the operations department to display tasks and control their status.
Decision support
Advanced decision support capability is available in the IMSMA GIS functionality to support prioritization of activities. In addition a countrywide assessment of the impact of mines on communities can be performed using the built in analysis tool of the impact survey.
Lessons Learned
Collecting and recording "lessons learned" on multiple topics. It is expected that these lessons learned will be shared with other Mine action Centers through the Web ServicesMine action.
Daily Log
Logbook for the station manager to continuously record important information and decisions.
Generating reports and maps
Based on the information entered in the system, the IMSMA Field Module can produce predefined reports and print maps as well as color overlays. Geographical information can be entered into the database using more than 1000 definitions of commonly used coordinate systems (including Latitude Longitude, UTM and MGRS) and 30 different projections. Coordinate conversion capability was provided to the Center for Security Studies and Conflict Research in the public interest by Mentor Software, Inc., Golden, Colorado. The GIS functionality based upon ESRI ArcView accesses this coordinate information and displays it on raster and vector maps as well as on satellite images. As data is kept exclusively in the database using Latitude Longitude and is not held in the GIS, newly entered data is immediately available using the GIS functionality by simply refreshing the current view.
In addition to entering data using coordinate points, the user can define (draw) points and shapes in the GIS view onto an electronic map or a satellite image and import the coordinates of the drawn shapes into the IMSMA database. This procedure not only facilitates data entry but also eliminates most data entry mistakes.
The IMSMA Field Module database is based on Microsoft Access and provides predefined reports. In addition, the user can define special reports using reporting tools built into Access or using specialized tools. Reports can be created to represent the data collected in the Field Module. Possible reports include:
- Mines/Unexploded Ordnance located and destroyed
- Area Cleared
- Hours spent per clearance and in total
- Accident and Incident statistics
- Display and print digital pictures of Mine infected areas
- Printing of mine and UXO hazard maps
The security structure allows multiple user groups that may have different access privileges to data and functionality.
Collecting data of the demining process
- Collecting data of impact surveys
- With mine awareness information
- With interviewee information
- With recent (less than 24 month old) and old victims
- Calculation of a priority (None, Low, Medium, High)
- With socio-economic information
- Administration of attached mined areas
- Collecting data of technical surveys
- Displaying progress reports of attached minefields
- Administration of attached minefields
- Collecting data of clearances
- With team information (work and location)
- With information about nearest medical facilities
- With landmark and benchmark point
- With perimeter
- With demining information
- With estimated devices
- Administration of attached progress reports
- Collecting data of completion surveys
- Automatic copy of data from mine action object the completion survey refers to
- With clearance summary
- With perimeters
- With destroyed and marked devices
- With description of uncleared area
- Collecting progress reports for minefields and clearances
- With demining information
- With destroyed and marked devices
- With uncleared area description
- With quality assurance information
Collecting data about the hazardeous areas with coordinates
- Collecting data of mined areas
Option for reference point:
- Viewpoint or geographic reference of impact survey
- Start point (coordinates) calculated by bearing and distance from reference point
- With suspected devices
- With socio-economic information
- With victims
- Collecting data of minefields
- With landmark and benchmark point
- With perimeters
- With suspected devices
- With terrain information
- With demining recommendations
- With socio-economic information
- Administration of attached progress reports
- Collecting data of dangerous areas
- With width and length (optional also perimeters)
- With suspected devices
- Can be used as UXO location as well
Collecting addional information
- Collecting accidents
- With link to mine action object where accident occurred
- With device information
- With cost information
- Administration of attached casualties
- With personal information
- With injury information
- With treatment information
- With equipment information
- Collecting incidents
- With device information
- Administration of attached victims
- With personal information
- With injury information
- With treatment information
- With social background information
- Collecting daily records
- Collecting lessons learned
Providing help for managing the demining process
- Tasking tool to bunch different mine action objects in one task
- Providing statuses for mine action objects as long as used in tasks
- Scheduling of tasks in time and assigning it to an organization
Providing help to collect data
- Providing an empty data sheet to collect data
- Providing filled data sheets as additional information during data collection
- Coordinate system administration supporting any coordinate systems to display coordinates
- Map administration
- Device administration
- Country structure administration with socio-economic information
- Location administration (various types of locations)
- Contact administration (can be linked to certain locations)
- Personnel administration
- Support definition of reliability for each mine action object
- Reference to nearest city for all mine action objects with geographic location
- Support import of coordinates from GIS
- Support picture attachements for all mine action objects
- Providing various criterias for the selection list when editing a mine action object
Providing maps about the hazardeous areas and processes
- Displaying all mine action objects with a geographic location in a geographic information system (GIS)
- Printing maps on paper from the GIS
Providing information overview about hazardeous areas and processes
- Navigator to browse through all mine action objects
- Displaying statistical information of data collected with the possiblity to print them on paper
- Displaying summaries of the information collected with the possiblity to print them on paper
Providing support for different languages
Providing export possibility (for detached Field Modules or to Web Services)
Synchronization of more than one back end
- Regional MACs work on a separate part of the country structure
- Regional MAC and central MAC synchronize their datapool in certain time intervals
