In recent years, the Swedish public sector has undergone rapid digitalization, while cybersecurity efforts have not kept even steps. This study investigates conditions for cybersecurity work at Swedish administrative authorities by examining organizational conditions at the authorities, what cybersecurity staff do to acquire the cyber situation awareness required for their role, as well as what experience cybersecurity staff have with incidents. In this study, 17 semi-structured interviews were held with respondents from Swedish administrative authorities. The results showed the diverse conditions for cybersecurity work that exist at the authorities and that a variety of roles are involved in that work. It was found that national-level support for cybersecurity was perceived as somewhat lacking. There were also challenges in getting access to information elements required for sufficient cyber situation awareness.

Combining Live, Virtual, and Constructive (LVC) aircraft in the same training scenario holds promise for developing and enhancing fighter pilot training. The simulator study reported here builds on joint pilot-researcher co-design work of beyond visual range LVC training (LVC-T) scenarios to provide training value to pilots in both Live and Virtual aircraft. One fourship of pilots simulated Live entities by acting under peacetime restrictions, while other pilots acted as during regular Virtual training. The objective was to investigate pilots’ reflections on the implications of LVC-T and on the methodology used to provide hands-on experience of a plausible LVC-T scenario. The purpose is to inform the design and use of future LVC in air combat training from the perspective of training value. Results indicate that pilots are positive toward the LVC scenario design, especially the dynamics that a large-scale scenario brings to training of decision making. They indicate a high degree of presence, the need for specific regulations to enforce flight safety, and that restrictions put on the simulated Live entities had implications for the other pilots. In addition to regular Live (L) and simulator (V + C) training, LVC-T may enhance pilots’ repertoires and decision-making patterns. 

Today, most enterprises are increasingly reliant on information technology to carry out their operations. This also entails an increasing need for cyber situational awareness—roughly, to know what is going on in the cyber domain, and thus be able to adequately respond to events such as attacks or accidents. This chapter argues that cyber situational awareness is best understood by combining three complementary points of view: the technological, the socio-cognitive, and the organizational perspectives. In addition, the chapter investigates the prospects for reasoning about adversarial actions. This part also reports on a small empirical investigation where participants in the Locked Shields cyber defense exercise were interviewed about their information needs with respect to threat actors. The chapter is concluded with a discussion regarding important challenges to be addressed along with suggestions for further research.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of the Swedish public sector, and to ensure the success of this ongoing process cybersecurity plays an integral part. While Sweden has come far in digitalization, the maturity of cybersecurity work across entities covers a wide range. One way of improving cybersecurity is through communication, thereby enhancing employee cyber situation awareness. In this paper, we conduct a census of Swedish public sector employee communication on cybersecurity at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic using questionnaires. The study shows that public sector entities find the same sources of information useful for their cybersecurity work. We find that nearly two thirds of administrative authorities and almost three quarters of municipalities are not yet at the implemented cybersecurity level. We also find that 71 % of municipalities have less than one dedicated staff for cybersecurity.

Simulator training is becoming increasingly important for training of time-critical and dynamic situations. Hence, how simulator training in such domains is planned, carried out and followed up becomes important. Based on a model prescribing such crucial aspects, ten decision-making training simulator facilities have been analyzed from an activity theoretical perspective. The analysis reveals several conflicts that exist between the training that is carried out and the defined training objectives. Although limitations in technology and organization are often alleviated by proficient instructors, it is concluded that there is a need for a structured approach to the design of training to be able to define the competencies and skills that ought to be trained along with relevant measurable training goals. Further, there is a need for a pedagogical model that takes the specifics of simulator training into account. Such a pedagogical model is needed to be able to evaluate the training, and would make it possible to share experiences and make comparisons between facilities in a structured manner.

Cybersecurity is the backbone of a successful digitalization of society, and cyber situation awareness is an essential aspect of managing it. The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up an already ongoing digitalization of Swedish government agencies, but the cybersecurity maturity level varies across agencies. In this study, we conduct a census of Swedish government administrative authority communications on cybersecurity to employees at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The census shows that the employee communications in the beginning of the pandemic to a greater extent have focused on first-order risks, such as video meetings and telecommuting, rather than on second-order risks, such as invoice fraud or social engineering. We also find that almost two thirds of the administrative authorities have not yet implemented, but only initiated or documented, their cybersecurity policies.

This article presents the design and evaluation of visualization concepts supporting After Action Review (AAR) in simulator mission training of fast-jet fighter pilots. The visualization concepts were designed based on three key characteristics of representations: re-representation, graphical constraining, and computational offloading. The visualization concepts represent combined parameters of missile launch and threat range, the former meant to elicit discussions about the prerequisites for launching missiles, and the latter to present details of what threats a certain aircraft is facing at a specific moment. The visualization concepts were designed to: 1) perceptually and cognitively offload mental workload from participants in support of determining relevant situations to discuss; 2) re-represent parameters in a format that facilitates reading-off of crucial information; and 3) graphically constrain plausible interpretations. Through a series of workshop iterations, two visualization concepts were developed and evaluated with 11 pilots and instructors. All pilots were unanimous in their opinion that the visualization concepts should be implemented as part of the AAR. Offloading, in terms of finding interesting events in the dynamic and unique training sessions, was the most important guiding concept, while re-representation and graphical constraining enabled a more structured and grounded collaboration during the AAR.

In this article we focus on the co-creation of ideas. Through the use of concepts from collaborative learning and communication theory we suggest a model that will enable the cooperative nature of creative design tasks to emerge. Four objectives of the model are stated and elaborated on in the paper: that the model should be anchored in previous research; that it should allow for collaborative aspects of creative design to be accounted for; that it should address the mechanisms by which new ideas are generated, embraced and cultivated during actual design; and that it should have a firm theoretical grounding. The model is also exemplified by two test sessions where two student pairs perform a time-constrained design task. We hope that the model can play a role both as an educational tool to be used by students and a teacher in design education, but primarily as a model to analyse students' cooperative idea generation in conceptual design.

This paper explores the use of an Ambient Information Display (AID) to visualize indoor temperature, in order to promote behavior change through reflection and discussion. A prototype system was built using Philips Hue, a personal wireless LED lighting system, to visualize indoor temperature with colors, and an unused smartphone as temperature sensor. A household with a family of five was used as test environment. The design process underwent two major design iterations focusing on the visualization and its impact on the family’s everyday perception of the indoor temperature, and the reflective processes this triggered. After three months of usage, late December to late March, the system was evaluated thoroughly. The awareness of the indoor temperature had been increased with the use of the system, where the AID had served as a trigger for discussions.

This paper focuses on the concept of representations produced in the context of collaborative design. More specifically, on the interplay between collaborative creation of sketches (design proposals), and argumentation and negotiation processes taking place in the design activity. The question raised in this paper is how sketches produced during a design session reflect and mediate dialogues and argumentation in the design activity and how the sketches feed into an envisioned use context or vice versa. The concepts of action contextand target context representations are introduced and used to illustrate shifts of focus during a design session. We have studied a group of students working on a design task in an interactive space for two weeks. The purpose of the study was to investigate how an environment meant to support collaborative work and learning support collaborative and creative learning of interaction design. The results indicate that students attending a course on interaction design did not pay enough attention to target representations. Furthermore the results suggest that "action context representations" to a large extent occupy student activities as a result of either complex technology or as a result of the students thrust to do something instrumental. We suggest that pedagogical programs for collaborative learning of design may relieve some of the mapping, or interplay, of design proposals and the target context representation.