Abstract: The magnitude seven earthquake that rocked Haiti has been a devastating disaster for the small country (USGS 2010). They are not alone in this crisis, however. When the earthquake struck, thousands of US citizens responded by donating money, resources, people, and time to aid in the disaster relief. To respond to the incident and to create a secure information-sharing environment, the Florida Miami-Dade County and State Emergency Operations Centers (EOC) were activated. The main information system in use at the Miami-Dade EOC is WebEOC, a web-based crisis information management system that aids in secure coordination and collaboration among EOC staff, liaisons, and emergency managers. As a result of the earthquake response efforts using this system, we have identified seven main insights and lessons learned with respect to crisis information management software. In this paper, we discuss Miami-Dade's role in the Haitian relief efforts and how this lead to these insights and lessons learned.

Abstract: In 2022, the global Emergency Event Database EM-DAT documented 387 occurrences of natural hazards and disasters, leading to the death of 30,704 individuals and impacting the lives of 185 million people. Crisis communication technology can help to support this scenario, providing appropriate support and efficient response to the affected Community. The communication between response actors, composed of professionals from operational centers, citizens, and affected communities should flow collaboratively. The population in the surrounding area where the event is provoked should be notified or may provide information for the response actors by means of some platform for crisis communication and anagement. Collaborative platforms for crisis communication are a research topic that is still under investigation. It is known that nowadays there are difficulties related to establishing effective crisis communication. The problems are related to delays in responses, conflicting information, diverse public opinion, bad resource allocation, and geographical mapping issues. In this scenario, a collaborative platform could be used as a model to serve as communication support. Collaborative computing, cooperation, location-based, disaster response, blockchain, and trust are the most related subjects to this area and represent an open field for future research. In this way, we started to research crowdfunding platform as a solution that can englobe all these features. About crowdfunding supported by govern, the research Lee et al. 2016 shows that: crowdfunding can offer an efficient mechanism to improve participatory budgeting and facilitate private–public collaboration while providing a high level of transparency in the budget decision process. Besides, the platform could allow the involvement of the population, for example in providing survival resources such as food, water, and medicines for disaster victims, medical assistance, and other critical services. For example, during a pandemic scenario, crowdfunding platforms assisted in augmenting traditional relief efforts. Besides, it is important to know insights into the needs of those affected communities Saleh et al. 2021. Crowdfunding platforms indicate to the governmental institutions which communities are affected and where the available funds can be directed. This Phd research proposal aims: • To study the factors that influence the success of the crowdfunding approach by applying techniques of sentiment analysis, geographical mapping, and duration of the campaign and collected amount. • To conduct a systematic review of guidelines for how to use crowdfunding to mobilize resources and support for the response effort. • To develop a case study of crowdfunding in the Brazilian context, compared with other scenarios, and how government can use crowdfunding to map and support the flood incidents in the Brazilian Northeast area. develop a model based on crowdfunding aiming to improve collaboration between response actors and citizens. Crowdfunding platforms show the progress of a campaign, helping to improve the transparency and accountability in the response effort. By making progress of the outcomes of the response effort visible to the public. Crowdfunding campaigns can serve as a community engagement and participation in the response effort. By involving the citizens in the response effort, government helps to build a sense of ownership and responsibility among the community.

Abstract: While a crisis requires quick response of emergency management factors, ontology is generally represented in a static manner. Therefore, an adaptive ontology for crisis knowledge representation is needed to assist in coordinating relief efforts in different crisis situations. The paper describes a method of ontology modeling that modifies the ontology in real time during a crisis according to the crisis surroundings. An example of ontology use based on a sample Katrina crisis blog is presented.

Abstract: Message data has, as yet, not been adopted by large-scale, international humanitarian relief organizations in an instrumental fashion. While the largest of these organizations have adopted messaging as part of their Public Relations functions, few have used any form of message data originating in the field, at the time of disaster. The message data being contributed by bystanders and those affected by a disaster, as it is happening, has largely been deemed as unverifiable and untrustworthy, and thus construed as unsuitable for incorporation into established mechanisms for organizational decision-making. In this paper, we describe the discursive barriers to the use of microblogged data by Humanitarian NGOs during times of disaster. We present data and findings from a study involving representatives from thirteen humanitarian organizations. Our analysis suggests that the organizational barriers, both in terms of function and structure, and the data itself, form barriers to organizational use of microblogged data. We propose three socio-technical solutions to surpassing adoption bottlenecks, namely bounded microblogging, microblogged data as contextual data, and/or use of computational solutions.

Abstract: Organizations in the humanitarian relief field increasingly need to look outside their own boundaries and engage in a significant level of inter-organizational collaboration. In studying collaborative processes in the nonprofit context, researchers have used different theoretical approaches to investigate the motivations behind why organizations collaborate. Although these studies have contributed to shed some lights on these collaborative mechanisms, little is still known about the main factors that influence the decision of humanitarian organizations to engage into collaboration especially with regards to the implications of information technologies. In this paper, we explore factors for collaboration among members of the GlobalSympoNet, a network of organizations engaged in humanitarian information management. We analyze data collected through nineteen semi-structured interviews. We identified seven factors that could be grouped into three categories including structural, behavioral and organizational. Our findings also suggest that information technologies alone are not enough to motivate and maintain long lasting collaboration.

Abstract: Technological advances in both distributed cooperative work and web-map services have the potential to support distributed and collaborative time-critical decision-making for crisis response. We address this potential through the theoretical perspective of distributed cognition and apply this perspective to development of a geocollaborationenabled web application that supports coordinated crisis management activities. An underlying goal of our overall research program is to understand how distributed cognition operates across groups working to develop both awareness of the geographic situation within which events unfold, and insights about the processes that have lead to that geographic situation over time. In this paper, we present our preliminary research on a web application that addresses these issues. Specifically, the application (key parts of which are implemented) enables online, asynchronous, map-based interaction between actors, thus supporting distributed spatial and temporal cognition, and, more specifically, situational awareness and subsequent action in the context of humanitarian disaster relief efforts.

Abstract: Smartphones are becoming increasingly useful in disaster management both to provide useful information to victims and to coordinate relief operations. However, a lack of technological expertise as well as considerable amount of time and cost required to build mobile applications prevents the rapid deployment of useful applications by humanitarian organizations for different crises. In this paper, we describe a participatory design workshop that we conducted at the International Committee of Red Cross to identify challenges of adopting mobile technologies within relief organizations. Through this workshop, we identified major challenges associated with developing mobile applications: lengthy development and deployment cycle, costly budget, and frequent requirement changes. We then introduced our framework that enables non-programmers to quickly develop and deploy mobile applications in these situations. The workshop participants identified three areas where our framework improved upon existing mobile solutions: reducing data integration overhead, fast prototyping for app development, and customization of apps.