When extreme events affect urban areas the response process should be fast and effective because the population and civil infrastructure densities potentially increase the impact of such events. These situations have shown the need to improve the group decisionmaking process and the coordination of relief activities carried out by relief organizations. This paper proposes to include first responders as decision makers and describes a technological platform to support decision making and coordination activities among these all actors involved. The supporting platform provides digital communication and information recording, representation and dissemination capabilities among the mobile workers participating in the relief efforts. The platform could also be used to support activities in scenarios similar to this one (e.g. police and military operations, massive social events). RÉSUMÉ. Quand des événements extrêmes se produisent dans des zones urbaines, les réponses des services de sécurité et des services d'urgence doivent être rapides et efficaces dans la mesure où la densité de population et d'équipement en augmente l'impact potentiel. Ces situations ont montré l'importance de la prise de décision collective et de la coordination des actions des services de réponse aux désastres. Considérant les personnels des services d'urgence comme des décideurs, nous proposons une architecture d'aide à la décision et à la coordination des activités. Notre plateforme fournit des outils de communication, de collecte des données, de représentation et de dissémination entre les acteurs participants à la réponse. D'autres applications de notre plateforme sont possibles, dans la police ou les armées.This paper presents a proposal to include first responders as decision makers and it describes a technological platform to record, represent and distribute contextual information during disaster relief efforts. The platform intends to improve the decision-making and coordination processes among first responders and the command post. The platform is composed of a software, hardware and communication system. It runs on mobile computing devices and it allows two information representations. Visual representations support the decision-making during disaster relief efforts, and the digital (internal) representation ensures the information's interoperability. The communication support enhances the communication and coordination capabilities of participant organizations. The
Abstract. This article presents a conceptual framework for the identification and classification of contextual elements included in groupware applications. Contextual elements store information that helps group members to characterize and to understand the interaction and its associate information. The conceptual framework can be used not only to guide the development of new groupware applications but also to analyze existing groupware. We illustrate the use of the framework in the analysis of three groupware tools.
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