Development of an information sharing framework; Communication strategies

Kawakubo, Yoko; Hoffheins, B.; Inoue, Naoko ; Mongiello, R.*; Baldwin, G.*

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), in cooperation with the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), has conducted research and development of transparency concepts and tools to support and promote regional nuclear non-proliferation transparency. Their cooperative efforts are ongoing and the most recent activity was the workshop held in Tokai, Japan, December 1-2, 2011, "Transparency Workshop: Development of an Information Sharing Framework". Among other things, the workshop discussed various ways of information sharing and highlighted two mechanisms: "face-to-face" and "web-based". This paper analyzed both "face-to-face" and "web-based" mechanisms to support establishing the information sharing framework for regional transparency. The analysis showed that each mechanism has different advantages and disadvantages therefore it is essential to find the optimum combination of these two mechanisms depending on the goals and needs of the framework. The challenges to web-based mechanism such as information security and possible structures of multi-party participation framework would be also described.