Irmana Sampedro, & Matthew Hughes. (2018). Underground Infrastructure and EQ events: how an advanced condition assessment and data collection process will assist in the planning for and recovery from an EQ event. In Kristin Stock, & Deborah Bunker (Eds.), Proceedings of ISCRAM Asia Pacific 2018: Innovating for Resilience – 1st International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Asia Pacific. (pp. 254–262). Albany, Auckland, New Zealand: Massey Univeristy.
Abstract: Is your organisation ready to cope with underground infrastructure condition assessment data collected after an earthquake? Drawing on lessons from the 2010-2011 Canterbury and 2016 Kaikoura earthquakes, we provide guidance on how to make small differences in how your organisation currently collects and stores the necessary condition data to prepare for emergencies, especially for small- and medium-size councils without sophisticated asset management systems. Key questions to address include: Are you receiving condition assessment data in electronic format? Are your contractors providing XY coordinates when repairs are undertaken, or when providing photographs as part of visual assessment? Do you have an asset management system able to prioritise critically damaged underground infrastructure? Do you have easy access to your current network condition for insurance purposes? Simple business-as-usual improvements will provide enhanced preparedness and resilience capability in the event of an earthquake. In addition, we provide a framework for future data collection processes.
|
Kiran Zahra, Muhammad Imran, & Frank O Ostermann. (2018). Understanding eyewitness reports on Twitter during disasters. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 687–695). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: Social media platforms such as Twitter provide convenient ways to share and consume important information during disasters and emergencies. Information from bystanders and eyewitnesses can be useful for law enforcement agencies and humanitarian organizations to get firsthand and credible information about an ongoing situation to gain situational awareness among other uses. However, identification of eyewitness reports on Twitter is challenging for many reasons. This work investigates the sources of tweets and classifies them into three types (i) direct eyewitnesses, (ii) indirect eyewitness, and (iii) vulnerable accounts. Moreover, we investigate various characteristics associated with each kind of eyewitness account. We observe that words related to perceptual senses (feeling, seeing, hearing) tend to be present in direct eyewitness messages, whereas emotions, thoughts, and prayers are more common in indirect witnesses. We believe these characteristics can help make more efficient computational methods and systems in the future for automatic identification of eyewitness accounts.
|
Terje Gjøsæter, Jaziar Radianti, & Weiqin Chen. (2018). Universal Design of ICT for Emergency Management: A Research Agenda. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 1148–1152). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: Information and communication technologies (ICT) are becoming increasingly important in emergency management and crisis communication. ICT tools are developed and adopted in all phases of the emergency management cycle. On the one hand, these tools contribute to better disaster preparedness and effective response. On the other hand, the lack of consideration of universal design in these tools also creates new barriers for different stakeholders, particularly the elderly and people with disabilities. The primary objective of this paper is to give an overview of the current state of the emerging research field of Universal Design of ICT for emergency management and provide a Research Agenda to highlight ways to uncover how the increasing introduction of ICT in emergency management can contribute to removing barriers instead of adding more barriers.
|
Marion Lara Tan, Raj Prasanna, Kristin Stock, Emma Hudson-Doyle, Graham Leonard, & David Johnston. (2018). Usability Factors Affecting the Continuance Intention of Disaster Apps. In Kristin Stock, & Deborah Bunker (Eds.), Proceedings of ISCRAM Asia Pacific 2018: Innovating for Resilience – 1st International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Asia Pacific. (pp. 326–338). Albany, Auckland, New Zealand: Massey Univeristy.
Abstract: Multiple disaster mobile applications (apps) already exist for public use; however, availability does not automatically translate to continued usage. Limited research has explored whether disaster apps are usable and whether the apps' usability affects users' intent for continued use. The paper presents a work-in-progress study that aims to test a usability-continuance intention model for the specific context of disaster apps. The study theorises seven usability factors that influence continued intention to use. An online usability survey was used to gather user experience data on disaster apps. Initial findings, through structural equational modelling, showed that five of the seven usability factors have a significant relationship to continuance intention. Although the relationships have different weights and directions, key influencers to users' intent to continue usage are app utility, app dependability, interface output, interface input, and interface graphics. The next step of the study will investigate the mediating effects of the factors and the moderating effects of users' experience and technological comfort.
|
Shane Halse, Jess Kropczynski, & Andrea Tapia. (2018). Using Metrics of Stability to Identify Points of Failure and Support in Online Information Distribution during a Disaster. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (p. 1121). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: We utilize the 2012 Hurricane Sandy dataset to investigate methods to measure network stability during a crisis. While previous research on information distribution has focused on individuals that are most connected, or most willing to share information, we examined this dataset for indicators of network stability. The value of this measure is to identify the points of failure within the network. The findings in this paper provide support for the use of social network analysis within the realm of crisis response to identify the points of failure within the network.
|
Songhui Yue, Jyothsna Kondari, Aibek Musaev, Songqing Yue, & Randy Smith. (2018). Using Twitter Data to Determine Hurricane Category: An Experiment. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 718–726). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: Social media posts contain an abundant amount of information about public opinion on major events, especially natural disasters such as hurricanes. Posts related to an event, are usually published by the users who live near the place of the event at the time of the event. Special correlation between the social media data and the events can be obtained using data mining approaches. This paper presents research work to find the mappings between social media data and the severity level of a disaster. Specifically, we have investigated the Twitter data posted during hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and attempted to find the correlation between the Twitter data of a specific area and the hurricane level in that area. Our experimental results indicate a positive correlation between them. We also present a method to predict the hurricane category for a specific area using relevant Twitter data.
|
Peng Xia, Ji Ruan, & Dave Parry. (2018). Virtual Reality for Emergency Healthcare Training. In Kristin Stock, & Deborah Bunker (Eds.), Proceedings of ISCRAM Asia Pacific 2018: Innovating for Resilience – 1st International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Asia Pacific. (pp. 494–503). Albany, Auckland, New Zealand: Massey Univeristy.
Abstract: Given the rising trend of natural and technological disasters in recent years, the demands for emergency responders are on the rise. One main challenge is how to cost-effectively train emergency responders. In this research, we aim to explore of the usage of Virtual Reality (VR) technology in an emergency healthcare training setting. We start with the following two research questions: (1) how to implement the VR technology to be used in the emergency healthcare training; and (2) how to evaluate the effectiveness of our implementation. To address the question (1), we construct emergency healthcare workflows from reference sources, convert them into process diagrams, and develop a VR software that allows users to carry out the processes in a virtual environment. To address question (2), we design an experiment that collect participants's personal data (features such as Age, Technical background etc.) and the performance data (such as timespan, avatar moving distance, etc.) generated during the training sessions. Ten participants were recruited and each performed three training sessions. We evaluate the data collected and have the following three conclusions: (a) despite the different personal features, the participants, after repeated trainings, can improve their performance with reduced timespan and moving distance; and (b) the technical background plays the most significant role among other features in affecting timespan in our VR-based training.
|
Saloni JD Vaghela, & Patrick C. Shih. (2018). WalkSafe: College Campus Safety App. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 983–993). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: WalkSafe is a location-based app that notifies users of emergencies around them. The app is compared to The Pennsylvania State University's emergency notification system – PSUAlert, which provides time-based alerts. We identify weakness of the existing PSUAlert system and address them by introducing a location-based emergency notification system with the records of past incidents along with the type of emergency with respect to the user's location. We gathered user perception from 43 survey respondents that informed the design of the WalkSafe app. We use mixed-methods approach to evaluate WalkSafe with PSUAlert system as a baseline. We assess both systems with 22 participants by notifying them of the fake emergencies and asking them to use both systems to understand details regarding the emergency and its location. The pre- and post-surveys are evaluated using content analysis and paired t-test. Participant reported higher perceived convenience, perceived security, willingness to use, and willingness to share when using WalkSafe.
|
Cedric Papion. (2018). Water supply network resilience in the Wellington Region. In Kristin Stock, & Deborah Bunker (Eds.), Proceedings of ISCRAM Asia Pacific 2018: Innovating for Resilience – 1st International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Asia Pacific. (pp. 263–271). Albany, Auckland, New Zealand: Massey Univeristy.
Abstract: Wellington sits across an active seismic fault line and depends on remote sources for its water supply. With widespread damage expected after a large earthquake, it may be months before a minimal water supply is restored to residents, and even longer before it reaches the tap. This paper presents a recent study undertaken to identify network vulnerabilities and take water supply resilience to the next level. The study presented a possible timeline for repairs to the bulk network and restoration of supply to each suburb's reservoir. This highlighted the most critical areas where an alternative supply or storage was needed. The study also considered how to get the water to the customers after the reticulation network had been damaged. The strategy considered by Wellington Water was to develop a seismically-resilient skeleton network connecting reservoirs and key distribution points. A notable innovation was the use of algorithms to determine optimal locations for public tap stands and identify the most cost-effective critical pipe network where strengthening upgrades needed to be focused. The aspects of the project concerning its significance for the region, the overall resilience strategy and the pipeline resilience engineering were presented at the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) and Water NZ conferences in 2017. While this paper touches on these subjects, its main focus is on the use of geospatial information for earthquake preparedness and resilience planning.
|
Erion Elmasllari. (2018). Why IT systems for emergency response get rejected: examining responders' attitude to IT. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 994–1002). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: Emergency responders' attitude to IT is marked by resistance, aversity, and rejection. This does not extend to technology in general and is specific to IT alone. Current research on the topic only presents partial, scattered, and unconnected accounts that do not provide a starting point on how to tackle this attitude. The available models for technology acceptance are also generic and do not take into account the specifics of the emergency response domain. Through extensive user research combined with a grounded theory approach, this paper identifies twelve problem areas from which responders' negative attitude towards IT arises. By extending the technology acceptance models with this new knowledge, we provide system designers with an understanding of what to tackle and tune in their IT system designs so that a positive attitude among emergency responders can be achieved.
|