Abstract: We describe a co-design method for emergency response scenario creation, to support the evaluation of new information technologies. The aim of our use of the method were to achieve scenarios that could be used in experiments or training sessions with professional emergency response personnel. We have analyzed how the method facilitated the design of scenarios (events, resource demands, communication between players), and the description of constraints in a resource management matrix. Our research indicates that the resource management matrix could be an important complement to function-centric analysis methods such as Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM). We also illustrate how the interplay between play and situation description allowed us to simultaneously design and validate the scenarios with respect to playability versus resource demands. We discuss how the resource matrix can be used to adjust the validated scenarios after the design sessions. © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: This paper describes the basic communication analysis performed in a research project with an ambition to investigate the impact of geographical information system (GIS) on crisis management organizations. The goal is to compare the communication between command and control teams that have access to a GIS with geographical position information (GPS) capability in its command post with teams that only have access to paper maps. The method used is controlled experiments using the C3Fire micro-world. A total of 108 professionals, forming 18 teams, participated in the study. The participating professionals were members of Swedish municipal crisis management organizations. The result shows that the communication pattern connected to giving orders have a different distribution depending on if the teams used GIS or paper maps. The result also shows that the communication volume is reduced if the teams use GIS.

Abstract: Concepts such as trust, shared understanding, cultural differences, mental workload, and organizational structure all impact upon the effectiveness of an organization (e.g., Tindale & Kameda, 2000), and even more so in the context of large scale multinational operations (e.g, Smith, Granlund, & Lindgen, 2010). In order to study these concepts we plan a multinational, distributed experiment with participants from three nations collaborating in the same virtual environment: Canadian, British, and Swedish participants will work together as part of a multinational MTS to deal with a complex task and gain control of a crisis situation. Empirical research on MTS remains limited (see, e.g., DeChurch & Marks, 2006) particularly at the multinational level where the investigation of MTS has been so far focused on case studies and exercises (e.g., Goodwin, Essens, & Smith, 2012). Therefore, there is a need to empirically study multinational MTS in order to assess the specific issues that multinational operations face, notably cultural and languages differences. The simulation environment used as experimental platform for this project is C3Fire (www.c3fire.org, Granlund & Granlund, 2011). C3Fire creates an environment whereby teams must work together to resolve a crisis in the firefighting domain, with the goal of evacuating people in critical areas, putting out the forest fire, and protecting buildings and other areas of value from the burning forest fire. This platform makes it possible to study participants' collaborative processes when dealing with a set of crisis scenarios in the context of a simulated emergency response situation. To deal efficiently with the crisis management operation, participants need to prioritize between different objectives, identify and protect critical areas, and plan and implement activities based on given resources. All these tasks are distributed between team members, compelling participants to exchange information and coordinate within and between teams to execute the task. The task is divided into three areas of responsibility as follows: 1) Information and Planning, responsible for situation assessment and providing the operating picture; 2) Operation and Logistic, responsible for intervention and resource management; and 3) Search and Rescue, responsible for research and management of civilians. C3Fire is designed to: 1) achieve an optimal compromise between internal and external validity; 2) show flexibility in scenario configuration (spectrum of units and roles – including search and rescue functions; Tremblay et al., 2010), allowing researchers to capture emergency response and crisis management and rapid response planning; 3) be highly configurable for testing many different types of teams (e.g., hierarchical vs. horizontal organizations); and 4) readily provide objective, non-intrusive metrics for assessing teamwork effectiveness (including macrocognitive functions and team processes) as well as quantitative measures of task performance (that take into account conflicting mission goals). © 2012 ISCRAM.