Additional Information:
ThoughtLink named the experiment Blue DICE since it used the company's proprietary Distributed Interactive Collaboration Environment (DICE), a general-purpose template for collaborative training, planning and information sharing environments. ThoughtLink's DICE tools included synchronous tools for text chat, white boarding, and video teleconferencing and asynchronous tools for sharing documents.
In the face-to-face execution of the Blue Buffalo exercises, trainees are provided with the background and big picture overview of the upcoming training sessions as well as some general administrative instructions. Trainees are then divided into teams of 2-4 people. Each team does six of the Blue Buffalo exercises or vignettes, including setting up meetings and interviews with potential witnesses and suspects (played by PPC role players) and gathering evidence. The team interactively develops a briefing on their findings and presents it to the chief of police (another role player). Finally an after action review is conducted to point out issues based on the course objectives.
Using the face-to-face framework, ThoughtLink put the Blue Buffalo curriculum online with integrated web-based collaboration tools, allowing role players from PPC in Nova Scotia to interact with students at various locations throughout Canada . A virtual police station graphic was created to give participants the feeling of working from a virtual office. This online version of Blue Buffalo uses a distributed, interactive, collaborative learning environment to conduct exercises (the same as those role played face-to-face) set in the fictitious country of Fontinalis.
