[Sahana_proj] Blogs to the Rescue - online article

[Ralph Walde]

Would this online article on humanitarian blogs, wikis , and tools  
for disaster recovery be of interest
for the class?

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070212/full/070212-12.html

Ralph Walde

The article makes references to two printed articles.

Shneiderman B.& Preece J., Science, 315 . 944 (2007)

Nourbakhsh I., et al. Nature, 439. 787 - 788 (2006).

-----------  ACM Summary of online article ---------------
Blogs to the Rescue!
Nature (02/15/07) Butler, Declan

A policy paper written by two University of Maryland professors  
recommends that the government incorporate Internet "community" tools  
to better deal with disaster relief or similar situations. The online  
community, using blogs, wikis, and other tools, could provide and  
share valuable information that would improve the effectiveness of  
professional emergency response efforts, say computer science  
professor Ben Shneiderman, founding director of the Human-Computer  
Interaction Laboratory, and Jennifer Preece, dean of the College of  
Information Studies. After the 2004 tsunami, the most common way to  
coordinate damage assessment and support was through the information  
being provided by volunteers using Web tools. Similar efforts were  
seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when many Web sites  
emerged to keep track of missing people and relief efforts. The UM  
paper calls attention to the lack of online reporting and networking  
incorporated into Homeland Security's new Information Network for  
Disaster Response as well as its online volunteer forum  
citizenscorp.gov. "If such systems were formalized in whole or in  
part, the impact could indeed be enormous," says the American  
Association for the Advancement of Science's Lars Bromley. But, "It's  
entirely possible that [the plan] is simply too decentralized and  
technically advanced for the relatively moribund .gov sector." A  
project known as Instedd intends to create a decentralized global  
reporting system for disease outbreaks. For such programs to have an  
impact, "A sympathetic balance between local and central will be  
necessary," says Preece.
Click Here to View Full Article 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.trincoll.edu/pipermail/sahana_proj/attachments/20070218/46576b19/attachment.htm