Rahman, S., Ramakrishnan, T., & Ngamassi, L. (2023). Social Media Use for Disaster Management by Underserved Communities: A Uses and Gratification Theory Perspective. In Jaziar Radianti, Ioannis Dokas, Nicolas Lalone, & Deepak Khazanchi (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International ISCRAM Conference (p. 1074). Omaha, USA: University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Abstract: Social media has emerged as a useful disaster management tool. However, studies indicate that not all individuals are equally inclined towards using social media for managing disasters. Underserved communities have not been able to reap the benefits of social media for disaster management to its full potential. We draw on the Uses and Gratification Theory and the literature on disaster vulnerability of underserved communities to develop a conceptual model. In our poster, we make five propositions in order to examine the motivating factors for the underserved communities to use social media for disaster management.
|
Caroline Rizza, & Ângela Guimarães Pereira. (2014). Building a resilient community through social network: Ethical considerations about the 2011 Genoa floods. In and P.C. Shih. L. Plotnick M. S. P. S.R. Hiltz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2014 Conference Proceedings – 11th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 289–293). University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University.
Abstract: This paper considers the role of social media in the response to the flooding of 2011 in Genoa (Italy), caused by flash floods during torrential rainfall. Volunteer students created a Facebook page to communicate with citizens and organize support and rescue activities. In this paper, we first look at the story of the 2011 Genoa floods from the point of view of the news media to gain insights into the imaginaries behind the use of social media in situations of natural disaster. Second, we look at a communication partnership between citizenry and public authorities for its value in building resilience to disaster among communities. Ethical and social dimensions of these partnerships are analysed.
|
Rob Grace, Jess Kropczynski, & Andrea Tapia. (2018). Community Coordination: Cooperative Uses of Social Media in Community Emergency Management. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 609–620). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: Emergency managers continue to struggle with a lack of staff, information processing tools, and sufficient trust in citizen-reported information to coordinate the use of social media in their communities. To understand possibilities for overcoming these barriers, we conduct interviews with emergency managers using scenarios describing the projective activities of community volunteers disseminating and monitoring social media. We find that coordinating social media use in communities requires alignments with local incident management systems and, in particular, existing sociotechnical infrastructure for managing citizen-reported information. These alignments open limited roles for community volunteers, notably coordinating the redistribution of official information; and stand to reshape the workflows and infrastructures of incident management systems by pushing emergency dispatchers to proactively process indirect reports of incidents obtained on social media, and integrate tools that can access hyperlocal data, curate incident and situational reports, and facilitate sensemaking among officials confronted with multiple information sources.
|
Rob Grace, Jess Kropczynski, Scott Pezanowski, Shane Halse, Prasanna Umar, & Andrea Tapia. (2017). Social Triangulation: A new method to identify local citizens using social media and their local information curation behaviors. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 902–915). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Local citizens can use social media such as Twitter to share and receive critical information before, during, and after emergencies. However, standard methods of identifying local citizens on Twitter discover only a small proportion of local users in a geographic area. To better identify local citizens and their social media sources for local information, we explore the information infrastructure of a local community that is constituted prior to emergencies through the everyday social network curation of local citizens. We hypothesize that investigating social network ties among local organizations and their followers may be key to identifying local citizens and understanding their local information seeking behaviors. We describe Social Triangulation as a method to identify local citizens vis-à-vis the local organizations they follow on Twitter, and evaluate our hypothesis by analyzing users' profile location information. Lastly, we discuss how Social Triangulation might support community preparedness by informing emergency communications planning.
|
Marco Romano, Teresa Onorati, Paloma Díaz, & Ignacio Aedo. (2014). Improving emergency response: Citizens performing actions. In and P.C. Shih. L. Plotnick M. S. P. S.R. Hiltz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2014 Conference Proceedings – 11th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 170–174). University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University.
Abstract: The role of common citizens within the emergency management (EM) process is crucial in order to support efficiently the operators' activities during the response phase. Moreover, their participation is strictly related to their profile and their experience in previous events. In a previous contribution we identified the different roles that the citizens can play for an effective cooperation with the EM workers. In this paper, we introduce an emergency tool based on a mobile application designed to support the activities of the citizens acting as Agent. The Agents have specific capabilities recognized by the EM Operation Center (OC) to execute actions under the remote supervision of the EM operators. The proposed tool allows the Agents to receive information from the OC and to visualize it through an advanced visualization modality. In particular, available information is previously collected by the center from the witnesses and the affected people that have alerted about it.
|
Savannah Thais, Shaine Leibowitz, Allie Saizan, & Ashay Singh. (2022). Understanding Historical, Socio-Economic, and Policy Contributions to COVID-19 Health Inequities. In Rob Grace, & Hossein Baharmand (Eds.), ISCRAM 2022 Conference Proceedings – 19th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 481–494). Tarbes, France.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has generated unprecedented, devastating impacts across the United States. However, some communities have disproportionately endured adverse health outcomes and socioeconomic injuries. Ascertaining the factors driving these inequities is crucial to determining how policy could mitigate the impacts of future public health crises. We have established research-driven metrics, aggregated as the Community Vulnerability Index (CVI), that quantify vulnerability to public health and economic impacts of COVID-19. We performed two analyses to better understand similarities between communities in terms of the vulnerabilities represented by the metrics. We performed an unsupervised k-means clustering analysis to understand whether communities can be grouped together based on their levels of negative social and health indicators. Our goal for this analysis is to determine whether attributes of the constructed clusters reveal areas of opportunity for potential policy impacts and future disaster response efforts. We also analyzed similarities between communities across time using time-sensitive clustering analysis to discover whether historical community vulnerabilities were persistent in the years preceding the pandemic and to better understand the historical factors associated with disparate COVID-19 impacts. In particular, we highlight where communities should invest based on their historical health and socioeconomic patterns and related COVID impacts. Through extensive interpretation of our findings, we uncover how health policy can advance equity and improve community resilience.
|
Sofia Kostakonti, Ramona Velea, Vassilis Papataxiarhis, Daniele Del Bianco, Uberto Delprato, & Stathes Hadjiefthymiades. (2021). A semantic approach for modeling vulnerability of communities. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 305–318). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose the use of semantic technologies for the representation of concepts and relationships required for the modeling of vulnerability data for local communities. First, we discuss the concepts of vulnerability and resilience and we try to identify the relationship between the two. We provide some background knowledge and we present basic characteristics of the two concepts. Next, we discuss the motivation behind the use of semantic technologies, and we show how the proposed framework can address existing challenges in terms of vulnerability assessment. The core part of this paper focuses on the semantic representation of community vulnerability aspects. We give an overview of the layered semantic framework consisting of interconnected ontological models and we provide a set of use-cases where the use of semantic-based modeling and query answering can prove beneficial in terms of assessing vulnerability.
|
Sofie Ivarsson. (2015). New method for evaluation of crisis communication in exercises ? involve the public. In L. Palen, M. Buscher, T. Comes, & A. Hughes (Eds.), ISCRAM 2015 Conference Proceedings ? 12th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. Kristiansand, Norway: University of Agder (UiA).
Abstract: In 2014, the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) carried out a comprehensive crisis communication multi-sector exercise. To evaluate communication in exercises there is a need for involving the public as they are the primary target group in most crises. Systematically involving the public in evaluation of exercises has only been done a few times in Sweden and there are no known international attempts. We therefore developed a method where a representative sample of 2 000 persons was drawn from the Swedish population register and invited to assess communication during the exercise. The so-called ?Public Network? finally consisted of 99 people who contributed extensively with 395 assessment questionnaires. This paper describes the method, the results and experiences. We encourage other organizations to involve the public in exercises for evaluation purposes. The results show that there is a willingness among the public to contribute to the development of crisis preparedness.
|
Therese Habig, Richard Lüke, Simon Gehlhar, Torben Sauerland, & Daniel Tappe. (2021). A Consolidated Understanding of Disaster Community Technologies. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 778–791). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Since the beginning of this millennium, there has been an increasing use of social media and crowdsourcing (SMCS) technologies in disaster situations (Reuter & Kaufhold, 2018). Disaster management organizations and corresponding research are increasingly working on ways of integrating SMCS into the processes of crisis management. In a changing technological landscape to address disasters, and with increasing diversity of stakeholders in disasters, the purpose of this research is to provide an overview of technologies for SMCS within disasters to improve community resilience. The identified and analyzed technologies are summarized under the term “Disaster Community Technologies” (DCT). The paper presents a classification schema (the “DCT-schema”) for those technologies. The goal is to generate an overview of DCT in a rapidly evolving environment and to provide the practical benefit for different stakeholders to identify the right one from the overview.
|
Thomas Papadimos, Nick Pantelidis, Stelios Andreadis, Aristeidis Bozas, Ilias Gialampoukidis, Stefanos Vrochidis, et al. (2022). Real-time Alert Framework for Fire Incidents Using Multimodal Event Detection on Social Media Streams. In Rob Grace, & Hossein Baharmand (Eds.), ISCRAM 2022 Conference Proceedings – 19th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 623–635). Tarbes, France.
Abstract: The frequency of wildfires is growing day by day due to vastly climate changes. Forest fires can have a severe impact on human lives and the environment, which can be minimised if the population has early and accurate warning mechanisms. To date, social media are able to contribute to early warning with the additional, crowd-sourced information they can provide to the emergency response workers during a crisis event. Nevertheless, the detection of real-world fire incidents using social media data, while filtering out the unavoidable noise, remains a challenging task. In this paper, we present an alert framework for the real-time detection of fire events and we propose a novel multimodal event detection model, which fuses both probabilistic and graph methodologies and is evaluated on the largest fires in Spain during 2019.
|
Tobias Andersson Granberg, Niklas Danielsson, Anna Fredriksson, Johan Nordstrom, Sofie Pilemalm, Richard Tjernstrom, et al. (2016). Using Semi-professionals in Emergency Response. In A. Tapia, P. Antunes, V.A. Bañuls, K. Moore, & J. Porto (Eds.), ISCRAM 2016 Conference Proceedings ? 13th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. Rio de Janeiro, Brasil: Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Abstract: The term semi-professional can be used to denote occupational groups that do not have emergency response as their primary profession but who get additional responsibilities within rescue and response, e.g. by performing a first response or assisting the professional emergency services. In this study, four different groups of possible semi-professional resources are analyzed and compared. Similarities and differences between the four groups are discussed. Factors, important for the successful implementation of a cross-sector collaboration of this kind, are highlighted. The preliminary results show that all four groups have the potential to act as semi-professional resources within emergency response. Interestingly, the basic requirements are the same for all groups, despite different prerequisites.
|
Annemijn F. Van Gorp. (2014). Integration of volunteer and technical communities into the humanitarian aid sector: Barriers to collaboration. In and P.C. Shih. L. Plotnick M. S. P. S.R. Hiltz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2014 Conference Proceedings – 11th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 622–631). University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University.
Abstract: Volunteer and Technical Communities (V&TCs) with expertise in the collection, analysis and presentation of data and the development of supporting technologies, have potential to inform humanitarian aid organizations and help increase the efficiency of their operations. This study analyzes the role of V&TCs during recent response efforts and identifies a number of challenges of organizational nature that need to be overcome in order for aid organizations to harness the potential of V&TCs. The study finds that V&TCs can broadly be categorized into software platform development communities, mapping collaborations, expert networks and data aggregators. Evidence of collaboration with aid organizations however remains limited, suggesting a number of barriers need to be overcome, including (1) limited resources; (2) the management of volunteers; (3) different levels of engagement; (4) level of commitment by V&TCs; (5) different ways of working; and (6) aid organizations' limited knowledge about V&TCs' expertise.
|
Vangelis Pitidis, Joao Porto de Albuquerque, Jon Coaffee, & Fernanda Lima. (2022). Enhancing Community Resilience through Dialogical Participatory Mapping. In Rob Grace, & Hossein Baharmand (Eds.), ISCRAM 2022 Conference Proceedings – 19th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 495–503). Tarbes, France.
Abstract: Citizen generated data can play an important role in enhancing community resilience. However, the relationship between data and community resilience has only been partly addressed in existing resilience scholarship, predominantly from the perspective of data utilisation in response to unfolding crises. Yet, in this study we attempt to highlight a different pathway for data-enabled contributions to community resilience, focusing on the process of data generation and its capacity to constitute a transformative moment itself. By exploring the case of the marginalized flood-prone community of M’Boi Mirim in São Paulo, Brazil, we introduce the concept of dialogical participatory mapping, and we argue that the process of generating geospatial data can empower local communities and assist in nourishing a resilience spirit among community members.
|
Vittorio Nespeca, Kenny Meesters, & Tina Comes. (2018). Evaluating Platforms for Community Sense-making: Using the Case of the Kenyan Elections. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 924–934). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: The profusion of information technology has created new possibilities for local communities to self-organize and respond to disruptive events. Along with the opportunities, there is also a series of challenges that need to be addressed in order to improve societal resilience. One of these challenges is to make sense of the continuous stream of information to create a coherent understanding and improve coordination. The research presented in this paper focuses on the socio-technical requirements of IT platforms that support sense-making and coordination. Using a comprehensive evaluation exercise based on real data from the 2017 Kenyan elections, we examine the development, workflows and use of this shared situational awareness in a group decision making process. In this manner, we identify requirements for resilience platforms and identify further research directions.
|
Hayley Watson, & Rachel L. Finn. (2014). Social media and the 2013 UK heat wave: Opportunities and challenges for future events. In and P.C. Shih. L. Plotnick M. S. P. S.R. Hiltz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2014 Conference Proceedings – 11th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 757–761). University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University.
Abstract: Studies examining the role of social media (SM) use in a crisis often examine the use of SM following a largescale crisis requiring an immediate response. In contrast, this working paper examines the usefulness of SM during an extended crisis, in the form of a heat wave. Authors use the 2013 UK heat wave as a case study to examine how SM was used by different stakeholders during the event, what function(s) SM had, how it was engaged with by the online community and accordingly, what value it contributed to crisis management activities. Findings show that ultimately the nature of the crisis, particularly in relation to populations who are most likely to be vulnerable to its effects, plays an integral role to the value of SM in preparation and response activities.
|
Connie White, Starr Roxanne Hiltz, & Murray Turoff. (2008). United we respond: One community, one voice. In B. V. de W. F. Fiedrich (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2008 – 5th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 25–33). Washington, DC: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: When emergency situations cross borders, or when newly formed groups need to work together, decision making can suffer from threat rigidity and pertinent information can be bypassed. We describe a Dynamic Delphi system under development that can create and sustain a group “voice” for an emergency response Community of Practice (CoP). We further describe its intended use for a CoP consisting of local, state and federal government responders, civilian emergency response teams (CERT), and volunteers. Community members can brainstorm, explore ideas, debate and vote iteratively to best reflect the group's opinion at any moment in time. Ongoing studies demonstrate that an online system implementing Dynamic Delphi characteristics along with Thurstone's Law of Comparative Judgment will prove conducive for building a repertoire of ideas, rules, policies or any other aspect of the community's 'voice', in such a way that the individual voices are juxtaposed in harmony to create a single song.
|
Philip Fei Wu, Yan Qu, Jennifer Preece, Kenneth R. Fleischmann, Jennifer Golbeck, Paul T. Jaeger, et al. (2008). Community response grid (CRG) for a university campus: Design requirements and implications. In B. V. de W. F. Fiedrich (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2008 – 5th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 34–43). Washington, DC: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: This paper describes the initial stages of the participatory design of a community-oriented emergency response system for a university campus. After reviewing related work and the current University emergency response system, this paper describes our participatory design process, discusses initial findings from a design requirement survey and from our interactions with different stakeholders, and proposes a Web interface design for a community response grid system. The prototyping of the system demonstrates the possibility of fostering a social-network-based community participation in emergency response, and also identifies concerns raised by potential users and by the professional responder community.
|
Max Wyss. (2005). Earthquake loss estimates applied in real time and to megacity risk assessment. In B. C. B. Van de Walle (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2005 – 2nd International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 297–299). Brussels: Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium.
Abstract: Real time loss estimates within one to two hours after major earthquakes are becoming useful for disaster managers and rescue teams to respond rapidly and at an optimal level. Tests show that the accuracy is low, but major disasters can be reliably distinguished from inconsequential earthquakes. Many technical and organizational aspects of these estimates can and should be improved. An analysis of what magnitude of disaster is likely to occur, if a major earthquake should occur near a megacity in a developing country shows that much work needs to be done to mitigate the risk, and that the global community is ill prepared to deal with such large disasters.
|
Zeno Franco, Chris Davis, Adina Kalet, Michelle Horng, Johnathan Horng, Christian Hernandez, et al. (2021). Augmenting Google Sheets to Improvise Community COVID-19 Mask Distribution. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 359–375). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Face mask scarcity in the United States hindered early infection control efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Areas with a history of racial segregation and poverty experienced differential COVID-19 death and morbidity rates. Supplying masks equitably and rapidly became an urgent public health priority. A partnership between a local manufacturer with available polypropylene fabric and the Medical College of Wisconsin, which had the capability to assemble and distribute masks, was formed in April, 2020. An improvised logistics framework allowed for rapid distribution more than 250,000 masks, and later facilitated hand-off to other organizations to distribute over 3 million masks. Using an action research framework three phases of the effort are considered, 1) initial deliveries to community clinics, 2) equitable distribution to community agencies while under “safer at home” orders, and 3) depot deliveries and transfer of logistics management as larger agencies recovered. A multi-actor view was used to interrogate the information needs of faculty and staff remotely directing distribution, medical student volunteers delivering masks, and the manufacturer monitorng overall inventory. Logistics information was managed using Google Sheets augmented with a small SQLite component. A phenomenological view, toggling back and forth from the “socio” to the “technical” provides detailed insight into the strengths and limitations of digital solutions for humanitarian logistics, highlighting where paper-based processes remain more efficient. This case study suggests that rather than building bespoke logistics software, supporting relief efforts with non-traditional responders may benefit from extensible components that augment widely used digital tools.
|
Christopher W. Zobel. (2011). Representing the multi-dimensional nature of disaster resilience. In E. Portela L. S. M.A. Santos (Ed.), 8th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management: From Early-Warning Systems to Preparedness and Training, ISCRAM 2011. Lisbon: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Although quantitative analytical information systems are an important resource for supporting decision-making in disaster operations management, not all aspects of a disaster situation can be easily quantified. For example, although the concept of the disaster resilience of a community has a technical dimension within which one can measure the resistance of the infrastructure against, and the speed of its recovery from, a disaster event, it also has social, organizational, and economic dimensions within which these characteristics may be more difficult to measure. This work-in-progress paper introduces a quantitative framework within which the multi-dimensional nature of such disaster resilience can be represented in a concise manner. This can help to improve understanding of the complexities associated with the concept, and thus directly support decision-making in disaster operations planning and management.
|
