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2013
This guidance is intended for Volunteer and Technical Communities (V&TCs) and tech groups that have a desire to collaborate with Formal Humanitarian Organizations. We hope that it best fits the needs of V&TCs and tech groups that currently seek practical advice on how to develop projects with formal humanitarian organizations or how to further strengthen pre-existing collaborative relationships. We hope that this Guidance helps V&TCs better understand the modus operandi of humanitarian organizations so that they may better formulate requests for partnerships and maximize the benefits of collaborative relationships.
2013 •
For nearly two decades, experts have been discussing the potentials and pitfalls of the ‘digital revolution.' The unrelenting development of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) has fundamentally altered the way that individuals, businesses, organizations, and governments interact with each other.2 Furthermore, these developments have forced organizations to change internally so that they can be more reactive and adaptive to this constantly changing environment. This ‘organizational innovation’ has created several alternative models for organizational structure that are now used across communities, networks, businesses, and institutions. In the field of humanitarian affairs, this trend has manifested in the emergence of Volunteer and Technical Communities (V&TCs) – networks of digital global citizens who have identified, and moved to fill, gaps in international crisis response. These digital communities harness ‘collective intelligence,’8 and utilize everything from radio broadcasts to social media, in order to exchange vital information during response to natural, environmental, or complex emergencies. These efforts have increasingly been able to augment the capabilities of those agencies which traditionally respond to significant humanitarian crises: United Nations agencies, national agencies, and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs). This paper seeks to examine organizational innovation in both traditional humanitarian organizations and V&TCs, with a look at how they may come together on an ‘innovation co-operation’ project that would better support the development of both groups.
As the widespread proliferation of technology changes how communities engage and respond to crisis, new mechanisms, such as Digital Response Networks (DRNs), emerge with the potential to facilitate collaboration and situational awareness between responders and local communities. DRNs are social networks of physical responders (e.g. local government, authorities, emergency responders, communities) and digital responders i.e. Volunteer & Technical Communities (V&TCs) 1 connected through a central hub. They are often considered a network-of-networks. This guide will step you through creating a localized DRN by describing a) the purpose and required capability of a DRN, b) considerations before creating a DRN, and c) how to setup and sustain the DRN hub and larger network.
New technology may offer many opportunities for humanitarian action, but it also presents a number of challenges. Currently, most of the critical analysis of these potential challenges takes place in the blogosphere, on tweets and on listservs. There is a strong need for more scholarly engagement on the subject. This article offers an agenda for critical inquiry into the emergent field of humanitarian technology as applied to a broadly defined context of crises, encompassing both natural disasters and conflict zones, by identifying what technology does to the humanitarian enterprise, and by reflecting on the key challenges that emerge.
Traditionally, emergency response is in large part the role and responsibility of formal organizations. Advances in information technology enable amateurs or concerned publics to play a meaningful role in emergency response. Indeed, in recent catastrophic disasters or crises such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2011 Japan earthquake and nuclear crisis, participatory online groups of the general public from both across the globe and the affected areas made significant contributions to the effective response through crowdsourcing vital information and assisting with the allocation of needed resources. Thus, a more integrative lens is needed to understand the responses of various actors to catastrophic crises or disasters by taking into account not only formal organizations with legal responsibilities, but also volunteer-based, participatory groups who actively participate in emergency response. In this dissertation, I first developed an “event-driven” lens for integrating both formal and volunteer-based, participatory emergency responses on the basis of a comprehensive literature review (chapter 1). Then I conducted a deeper analysis of one aspect of the event-driven lens: relationships between participatory online groups and formal organizations in crisis or disaster situations. Specifically, I explored organizational and technical determinants and outcomes of forming such relationships (chapter 2). As a consequence, I found out three determinants (resource dependence, shared understanding, and information technology) and two outcomes (inter-organizational alignment and the effectiveness of coordinated emergency response) of the relationship between participatory online groups and formal organizations and suggested seven hypotheses. Furthermore, I empirically tested these hypotheses, focusing on the 2015 Nepal earthquake case (chapter 3). As a result, I found ii empirical evidence that supports that shared understanding and information technology improve the development of the relationship between participatory online groups and formal organizations. Moreover, research findings support that the development of the relationship enhances inter-organizational coordination. Lastly, I provide implications for future research (chapter 4). This dissertation is expected to contribute to bridging the disconnect between the emergency management literature and the crisis informatics literature. The theoretical insight from inter-organizational relations (IOR) theory provides another contribution.
2019 •
Advances in information and communication technologies enable the public to contribute to emergency responses. In recent disasters, the public has set up reporting systems by which the affected people could submit their testimonies about disaster conditions, analyzed disaster data, and helped mobilize and deliver relief resources. To intentionally plan for an integrative emergency response system in the networked age, this research aims to explore (1) organizational and technical determinants to the formation of the relationships between formal organizations and participatory online groups formed by the public and (2) the consequences on the outcomes that the relationships generate. We conducted a series of in-depth case studies. This research determines that resource dependence, shared understanding, and the use of certain types of information technology influence the formation of the relationships. In addition, healthy collaborative relationships increase the chances for desired outcomes including inter-organizational alignment and minimizing the long-term harms of a disaster.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Integrating Social Media Communications into the Rapid Assessment of Sudden Onset Disasters2014 •
This project was conducted in response to Global Disaster Preparedness Center’s (GDPC) call for developing a comprehensive understanding of the implications of social media analysis tools for disaster preparedness, focusing on the Asia Pacific region. Findings from both interview and survey data revealed the state of humanitarian organizations’ use of social media and social media analysis and the opportunities and challenges associated with these uses for disaster preparedness.
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Digital Humanitarian Network
Fostering the Right Workspace - Strategic Considerations for the Humanitarian Sector2018 •