A- Oh what a time...

ASSIGNED BLOG POST 12:

Reflecting on the readings and speakers of the entire semester, in what ways do you see IST, SRA and Penn State students as perfectly well-suited to address issues arising with the integration of technologies into crisis response?

This class has been a great experience, it has not only taught me more about disaster response, but how technology that I, as well as my classmates, already use on a daily basis for fun can be implemented in crisis situations. The IST and SRA, as well as other Penn State students in this class are well suited to address issues arising with the issues arising with the integration of technologies into crisis response. SRA and IST allows its students to help integrate technology into areas that don't readily incorporate technology that would help benefit that industry. This class has helped us visualize ways to integrate technology into humanitarian relief efforts through the use of twitter, facebook, open-source mapping, etc. 

Our interest and near immediate integration of technology into our own lives definitely allows for IST and SRA majors for the seamless crossbreeding in between technology and physical, information, and other types of security. This allows us to implement the uses of various technologies to achieve the goals of a particular concern, especially when linking human and technology elements. Innovation is also a key part of both of the IST and SRA majors; innovation of technology, innovation of new ways to do old things, and innovation of new processes. All of these things together have been taught in our Crisis Informatics class and other SRA and IST classes, which is why students from both majors can address issues arising with the issues arising with the integration of technologies into crisis response well. 

A- Geo-whatever and Project Malcontent

At the start of our class we decided that, since all of our first two entries for our final project were horrendous, we ditched the presentations and worked on our projects. Originally the group that I am in wanted to do something regarding health care, which turned into doing a mapping system for 911 dispatchers to help them prioritize their calls, which we then found out already exists. So our project at the current moment is null. It also didn't help that we sought help from our professor that was not responded to in a timely manner to say the least. 

Never the less, after we discussed our projects, what a requirements analysis actually was, and what a high level design was, we had a presenter about GIS. He works for Penn State as a professor and researcher in the Department of Geography for GeoVISTA. His presentation was okay, I have to say that Geographic Information Systems do not spike my interest in the least therefore I didn't really pay too close of attention to his presentation. One thing I did pick up on though was how he was using social media to geographically see what was occurring in geographic areas; and that Penn State wanted to use that technology on Penn State students during the rioting and protesting during the last few tumultuous weeks. Luckily, he saw a conflict of interest so that technology was not made available.

All in all, he knew his stuff, and my group is still struggling with our project.  

 

I- Penn state protests joe paternos firing

As I write this on the steps of old main, I can't help but to think of all the media and social networking that enabled such a gathering so suddenly. I first found out that espn would be showing the board of trustees press conference from my roommates text she got. I then texted my boyfriend and my parents. I then watched it; disgusted, my room mates and I were speechless. Soon after the media covered the press conference, along with twitter, facebook statuses, texts, and calls from friends protests and riots started. Could such an event have been possible if this kind of mass convergence could only be heard about through word of mouth, like in abe lincolns day? I think not. Social media today is such an immediate spread of knowledge; so I pose this question to you....in the case of mass convergences, is social media and instantaneous connectivity among peers a force for good or bad?

A- Twitter, Tweets, & Tweeting

Today's class started out rather unusually for our Crisis Informatics class session; we went to the CAVE. At the Extreme Events Lab in Penn State's Information Sciences and Technology building there was a room that could only be accessed by a few people AND WE GOT TO GO IN IT! :) While this room had a CAVE (not like a batman cave, but a piece of technology called CAVE), it was a smaller version of Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory's CAVE, but none the less awesome. The CAVE that I saw today with my fellow classmates was basically a huge screen that could project 3D images and data in various formats with images that could be manipulated. It was so cool; but I have to admit ARL's whole room of 3D projecting screens would be even more awesome to play with.

More information about the CAVE technology can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Automatic_Virtual_Environment

The CAVE technology was based off of this woman's theory, which is explained in a video and also demonstrates how CAVE is generally used:
http://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=8&type=8&indi=72



We also talked about Twitter today; I presented an article that I found to be pretty informative, even if it did get a bit wordy sometimes. (But, as it was a scholarly paper I guess it would be in its nature to be wordy.) The paper detailed five results that came from the research performed for that study

1- The quantity of Twitter activity measured correlated to both size and significance of happenings.
            aka: The more important and the more people it affects, the more people will
                     tweet about it.

2- The number of Twitter senders decreases as the number of tweets sent increases
            aka: This supports but doesn't prove the idea that people serve as information
                     hubs that they collect and distribute information while others absorb
                     that information

3- The percentage of reply tweets was much higher in random tweets than in the data samples used

4- The percentage of tweets containing URLs was higher in the data samples used than in random tweets
            -The use of URLs have been on the rise; in 2007 13% of all tweets contained
              a URL, but in 2008 it rose to just under 25%.

5- When faced with a need and having important and direct usefulness with it, people are more likely to adopt a new technology for the long term.
            aka: When people need to use a new technology because it will provide them
                     with some use that they can't get elsewhere, they are more likely to use
                     that new technology and keep using it into the long-term.

Overall, my article suggested that crisis management could and should use Twitter and other micro-blogging technologies to release rapid information when in crisis or mass convergence situations. After all, when a crisis happens I doubt anyone will want to get a twenty page report stating in overly-complexified terms that a water station will be set up at such and such corner... crisis managers need only send out a tweet saying "#crisis.at.x.location water station will be at such and such corner ".   Sometimes, and especially in crises, simplicity can never be over rated when it comes to meeting the needs of the individuals affected.

(As in last week's blog, I will state again that I think Twitter and other micro-blogging technologies should be used to communicate information rapidly TO people affected; not to collect information FROM people affected.)

A- Japan, aka: The Land of Newly Radiated Sushi

In the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake-tsunami combo hit, twitter emerged as a top source of communication between those affected who wanted to share information and those wanting to gain information about people and places.  Over seventy percent of the earthquake's responders used Twitter, thirty-eight used Facebook, and sixteen used Youtube to communicate to the outside world about how they were, what they were experiencing, where they were, and what they needed according to the article The Effects of Social Media on The Disaster Relief Effort Following The March 11 Earthquake in Japan.

Dr. Tapia, the course instructor for SRA 397a: Crisis Informatics posted a video link in this week's list documents to read, and I have to say that I have never seen such widespread devastation occur so fast, with such force, and it made the landscape nearly unrecognizable after all of the destruction was over. The video link was unfortunately unable to be accessed at the time of this post, so similar videos can be seen from the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiENf1f1tIA&feature=related

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12725646

While some people affected by Japan's disaster were Tweeting true emergencies, facts, needs, sights, and other things, there were those who were and were not affected by the disaster who were using the same hash-tags but were posting false needs, information, locations, and other tweets. Because of this, I feel that tweets aren't the best go-to-communication tool to use when trying to help populations in crises. The devastation that occurred in Japan is no doubt a tragedy, but we should be wary when offering help to those who need it... making sure those people are the people who actually need it and aren't leading humanitarian aid workers on a false trail of help.