[Sahana_proj] Blogs to the Rescue - online article

[Ralph Morelli]

I finally succeeded in tracking down the full text of the 1-page  
article.
I'll provide a summary in class today.  Here's the link:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol315/issue5814/index.dtl#r-articles

-- ram



On Feb 18, 2007, at 6:11 PM, Ralph Walde wrote:

> 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
>
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