Synthetic Environments for Investigating Collaborative Information Seeking: An Application in Emergency Restoration of Critical Infrastructures
Abstract
Large-scale disasters can produce profound disruptions in the fabric of interdependent critical infrastructure systems such as water, telecommunications and electric power. The work of post-disaster infrastructure restoration typically requires information sharing and close collaboration across these sectors; yet – due to a number of factors – the means to investigate decision making phenomena associated with these activities are limited. This paper motivates and describes the design and implementation of a computer-based synthetic environment for investigating collaborative information seeking in the performance of a (simulated) infrastructure restoration task. The main contributions of this work are twofold. First, it develops a set of theoretically grounded measures of collaborative information seeking processes and embeds them within a computer-based system. Second, it suggests how these data may be organized and modeled to yield insights into information seeking processes in the performance of a complex, collaborative task. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications of this work for practice and for future research.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported in part by US Department of Homeland Security Grant 2008-ST-061-ND 0001 to W.A. Wallace and by a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute VPR Seed Grant to D. Mendonça, B. Cutler and W.A. Wallace.
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©2015 by De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Network Disaster Response Effectiveness: The Case of ICTs and Hurricane Katrina
- Principle-Based Design: A Methodology and Principles for Capitalizing Design Experiences for Information Quality Assurance
- Increasing Evacuation Communication Through ICTs: An Agent-based Model Demonstrating Evacuation Practices and the Resulting Traffic Congestion in the Rush to the Road
- Managing Network Based Governance Structures in Disasters: The Case of the Passau Flood in 2013
- Geographic Information Systems for Disaster Response: A Review
- Determinants of Emergency Management Decision Support Software Technology: An Empirical Analysis of Social Influence in Technology Adoption
- Using Social Multimedia Content to Inform Emergency Planning of Recurring and Cyclical Events in Local Communities
- Social Media and the Virality of Risk: The Risk Amplification through Media Spread (RAMS) Model
- Social Media in Crisis: When Professional Responders Meet Digital Volunteers
- Closing the Citizen-Government Communication Gap: Content, Audience, and Network Analysis of Government Tweets
- Re-Tweet Count Matters: Social Influences on Sharing of Disaster-Related Tweets
- Synthetic Environments for Investigating Collaborative Information Seeking: An Application in Emergency Restoration of Critical Infrastructures
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Network Disaster Response Effectiveness: The Case of ICTs and Hurricane Katrina
- Principle-Based Design: A Methodology and Principles for Capitalizing Design Experiences for Information Quality Assurance
- Increasing Evacuation Communication Through ICTs: An Agent-based Model Demonstrating Evacuation Practices and the Resulting Traffic Congestion in the Rush to the Road
- Managing Network Based Governance Structures in Disasters: The Case of the Passau Flood in 2013
- Geographic Information Systems for Disaster Response: A Review
- Determinants of Emergency Management Decision Support Software Technology: An Empirical Analysis of Social Influence in Technology Adoption
- Using Social Multimedia Content to Inform Emergency Planning of Recurring and Cyclical Events in Local Communities
- Social Media and the Virality of Risk: The Risk Amplification through Media Spread (RAMS) Model
- Social Media in Crisis: When Professional Responders Meet Digital Volunteers
- Closing the Citizen-Government Communication Gap: Content, Audience, and Network Analysis of Government Tweets
- Re-Tweet Count Matters: Social Influences on Sharing of Disaster-Related Tweets
- Synthetic Environments for Investigating Collaborative Information Seeking: An Application in Emergency Restoration of Critical Infrastructures