Information technologies and the sharing of disaster knowledge: the critical role of professional culture

Introduction: The Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) to build the resilience of nations and communities to disasters has been proposed since year 2005. Even though educational based disaster risk reduction programs have been conducted by the institutional agencies for years, communities are still weak in response to disaster preparedness. The current efforts need to be revised to understand the possible dilemma of moving the community from fragility to resilience. Objective: To examine the community perception of the disaster preparedness and response, and their readiness to become the resilient community. Methodology: This is a case-study conducted among 40 participants at the age of 18 -29 years from a local private college. A campus-based disaster awareness seminar was initiated into a strategized learning framework to facilitate knowledge transfer and foster awareness built among the participants. The program framework consists of three sections: 1) to expose the participant with information on visual-aid and interactive discussion; 2) to involve the public involvement in hands-on practice bandages and dressings; 3) to evaluate the public's readiness and acceptance towards a resilience nation based on a survey questionnaire. Result: 75% of the educated respondents claimed that they did not consider themselves as the resilient group of the disaster, and 55% referred to the non-validated news from internet/ social media as the source to gather information. Nevertheless, most of the participants have expressed common expectations, such that 1) to share experiences and knowledge about disaster risk reduction planning and response; 2) to learn how to empower the local community during disasters. Conclusion: It is truth that urban and educated groups are fragile in response to the disaster. Nonetheless, knowledge transfer is one of the most feasible approaches to building a resi-* Corresponding author. V. How et al.OALibJ | DOI:10.4236/oalib.1101987 2 October 2015 | Volume 2 | e1987 lient community and fostering a nation who is able to withstand and recover from any upcoming disaster with sustainable development.

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“…• Marincioni (2007) encouraged the use of information technology (IT) to enhance communication and abet information and knowledge exchange [10].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Case Study of Campus-Based Initiatives to Disaster Awareness Program: The Road to Resilience

How

Peter²,

Martinus³

et al. 2015

OALib

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“…The Irpinia-Basilicata earthquake of 1980 was not only a major national disaster, it was also the dawn of a new era of civil protection (Marincioni, 2007). At the time, Law no.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An evaluation of medium-term recovery processes after the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila, Central Italy

Alexander

2013

Environmental Hazards

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“…However, representatives from government departments and emergency services agencies, whose routine culture is characterized by generally higher levels of hierarchical relationships and reporting, tend to be predisposed towards maintaining their own agency-based independence. This fosters an emergent culture of rivalry among organizations in ways that work against information sharing between agencies during a crisis (Waugh and Streib 2006;Iannella and Henricksen 2007;Marcus et al 2006;Marincioni 2007). Furthermore, these predisposing cultural features can result in relationships that are characterized by in-and out-group differentiation.…”

Section: Trustmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decision-Making: Preventing Miscommunication and Creating Shared Meaning Between Stakeholders

Doyle

Paton

2017

Advances in Volcanology

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The effective management and response to either volcanic eruptions or (often prolonged) periods of heightened unrest, is fundamentally dependent upon effective relationships and communication between science advisors, emergency managers and key decision makers. To optimise the effectiveness of the scientific contribution to effective prediction and management decision making, it is important for science advisors or scientific advisory bodies to be cognisant of the many different perspectives, needs and goals of the diverse organisations involved in the response. Challenges arise for scientists as they may need to be embedded members of the wider response multi-agency team, rather than independent contributors of essential information. Thus they must add to their competencies an understanding of the different roles, responsibilities, and needs of each member organisation, such that they can start to provide information implicitly rather than in response to explicit requests. To build this shared understanding, the team situational awareness (understanding of the situation in time and space), and the wider team mental model (a representation of the team functions and responsibilities), requires participating in a response environment together. Facilitating the availability of this capability has training and organizational development implications for scientific agencies and introduces a need for developing new inter-agency relationships and liaison mechanisms well before a volcanic crisis occurs. In this chapter, we review individual and team decision making, and the role of situational awareness and mental models in creating "shared meaning" between agencies. The aim is to improve communication and information sharing, as well as furthering the understanding of the impact that uncertainty has upon communication and ways to manage this. We then review personal and organisational factors that can impact response and conclude with a brief review of methods available to improve future response capability, and the importance of protocols and guidelines to assist this in a national or international context.

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Information technologies and the sharing of disaster knowledge: the critical role of professional culture

Cited by 70 publications

References 30 publications

A Case Study of Campus-Based Initiatives to Disaster Awareness Program: The Road to Resilience

A Case Study of Campus-Based Initiatives to Disaster Awareness Program: The Road to Resilience

An evaluation of medium-term recovery processes after the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila, Central Italy

Decision-Making: Preventing Miscommunication and Creating Shared Meaning Between Stakeholders

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