Abstract: Resource coordination between NGOs is crucial to have efficient emergency responses. Information Systems (IS) are a tool facilitating resource transfers, information exchanges, and resource coordination between organizations. They cannot be efficient if they are not adapted to fundamental problems of crisis management and specifically to resource coordination processes. This paper explores the operational aspect of resource transfer processes, the intensity of resource coordination between NGOs, and the characteristics an IS, as a support to those processes, must have to improve the resource coordination. Sixty-five in-depth interviews, documentation, and on-site observations in Chile with 13 NGOs chosen for their diversity allowed identifying different categories of processes. A mixed-transformative approach being used, intensity scores were assigned to processes and global scores were calculated for NGOs, based on their processes. A brief discussion follows on how information systems should be adapted to help these processes to increase coordination intensity.

Abstract: Despite intense research on decision-making in action, we still know little about when decision-makers rely on deliberate vs. intuitive decision-making in decision situations under complexity and uncertainty. This paper studies decision-making modes (deliberate vs. intuitive) in complex task environments contingent on perceived complexity, experience, and decision style preference. We find that relatively inexperienced decision-makers respond to increases in subjective complexity with an increase in deliberation and tend to follow their decision style preference. Experienced decision-makers are less guided by their decision preference and respond to increases in subjective complexity only minimally. Our paper contributes to a developing stream of research linking decision-making with intra-personal and environmental properties and fosters our understanding of the conditions under which decision-makers rely on intuitive vs. deliberate decision modes. In doing so, we go one step further towards a comprehensive theory of decision-making in action.

Abstract: Cybersecurity was a major topic of discussion at the 2015 World Economic Forum in Davos – the Sony attack; huge data breaches at Target and Adobe; a 91% increase in targeted cyber-attacks; annual losses of over $400 billion; the exposure of 904 million personal data records; cyber-attacks on a Finnish bank, a South Korean credit bureau, a German factory?s industrial controls, and the Ukrainian government; as well as increased general anxiety over critical infrastructure exposure (Tobias 2014; WEC 2015). These incidents highlight the risks inherent in a world increasingly complex, interconnected, and cyber-based. Much like thinking in other fields of disaster and crisis management, creating an impenetrable boundary or eliminating cyber risk entirely has given way to building cyber resilience. Cyber resilience is a social, economic and national security issue. This paper examines one approach, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, in terms of building resilience in both cybersecurity and privacy.

Abstract: Advancements in information and communication technology (ICT) offer new possibilities when dealing with crisis situations. In this paper we present the design for a crowd tasking tool (CTT) that is currently under development. We describe how the tool can assist disaster relief coordinators during a crisis by selectively distributing tasks to a crowd of volunteers. We also compare the CTT with an already existing ICT based solution for supporting volunteerism during crisis. The differences between these two tools are addressed and the implications for volunteerism are discussed. The paper concludes with an outlook on future work emphasizing a form of volunteer involvement that offers potential for gathering information that is more relevant and easier to digest for decision-making than information provided solely by self-organised volunteers through social media.

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.

Abstract: Social media have proven to be useful resources for spreading verified information during natural disasters. Nevertheless, little attention has hitherto been devoted to the peculiarities of constructing effective tweets (and tweet formats), or to common users? comprehension of tweets conveying scientific information. In this paper, social scientists and seismologists collaborated in order to elaborate and test a standardized tweet structure to be used during earthquakes, expanding on the results of a quali-quantitative research project. The tweet format is specifically designed to launch an innovative information service by Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV): tweeting the automatic detection of earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 3. This paper illustrates the steps of the research process that led to elaborating a tweet format that will be used in the next few months by the official Twitter account @INGVterremoti.

Abstract: Crisis communication research emphasizes the necessity for organized, informed, and effective strategies when engaging audiences. However it is often difficult to apply best practices from academic literature in real life situations. One way to bridge this gap is with an interactive simulation, which lets participants to test their ability to operate in a crisis. This paper describes the creation and implementation of an online crisis communication simulation developed for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The simulation uses a server-side software platform called ICONSnet?, which allows complexity in its design with both minimal overhead costs and human facilitation difficulties.

Abstract: The preparation of high quality emergency plans to guide operational decisions is an approach to mitigate the emergency management complexity. In such multidisciplinary scenario, teams with different perspectives need to collaborate towards a common goal and interact within a common understanding. In this scenario, the characterization of the variability of the elements involved in these plans is an important issue, which is addressed by the emergency plans generation methodology Document Product Line for Emergency Plans (DPL(EP)). To increase common understanding of plans, we propose an adaptation of this methodology by applying a well-founded emergency ontology, termed OntoEmergePlan, which supports the domain engineering phase. It is grounded in a foundational ontology, which ensures a higher consistency degree to the process of plans generation.

Abstract: Disaster response operations exceed the capacities of each single organization
Disaster response operations exceed the capacities of each single organization and thus require cooperation by at least two, often up to some hundred agencies who do seldom interact in their daily operations. The result is a complex problem of cognition, coordination, command and control. This paper presents a review of empirical studies on multi-agency coordination in disaster response operations in order to initiate and facilitate cross-case learning. The review covers 72 empirical studies and highlights the importance of themes such as plans and plan enactment, leadership or personal acquaintance of actors in emergent multi-agency response networks. The analysis also shows that while some themes received extensive coverage in scholarly publications (e.g. training, skills), various important topics have not been studied in sufficient depth (e.g. development of common operational pictures, plan enactment). Based on these insights, the review develops a research agenda and derives various recommendations for practical disaster response management.

Abstract: We developed a series of inexpensive but accurate mobile radiation detectors, which we named Pocket Geiger (POKEGA), to address the urgent desire of ordinary people to measure and share radiation levels in their milieus and to discuss the results of the Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima, Japan. This action research reports on a new style of pragmatic model of radiation monitoring, which employs the features of Participatory Design and Participatory Sensing and adopts modern communication platforms such as crowd-funding, open source development, and Facebook. This paper proposes an interaction model between the project management body, and other inclusive corroborators, e.g., ordinary users and experts, and focuses on three development phases of the project: start-up phase, evaluation phase, and operation phase. This paper also considers a reliability assurance model on disaster information sharing between the citizen layer and the official layer by data sharing and discussion activities in the POKEGA community.

Abstract: A key challenge for research roadmapping in the crisis response and management domain is articulation of a shared vision that describes what the future can and should include. Visioning allows for far-reaching stakeholder engagement that can properly align research with stakeholders? needs. Engagement includes feedback from researchers, policy makers, general public, and end-users on technical and non-technical factors. This work articulates a process and framework for the construction and maintenance of a stakeholder-centric research vision and roadmap in the emergency management domain. This novel roadmapping process integrates three pieces: analysis of the research and technology landscape, visioning, and stakeholder engagement. Our structured engagement process elicits research foci for the roadmap based on relevance to stakeholder mission, identifies collaborators, and builds consensus around the roadmap priorities. We find that the vision process and vision storyboard helps SMEs conceptualize and discuss a technology?s strengths, weaknesses, and alignment with needs.

Abstract: This paper describes how enthusiasts from the radio-amateur and red-cross communities developed and applied position tracking to search and rescue services in Norway. This was based on the APRS standard which has been used by radio-amateurs for some time.
The document describes how radio-amateurs designed a tracking device which was robust and simple to use along with a web-based online service, a map server, to display positions along with other geographical information on electronic maps. The software for the tracker and the map server is free and open source. This system has been used in a number of search and rescue missions in Norway since 2009, to support decisions making in the command and control centre.