research-article

Improving situation awareness in crisis response teams

Authors:

Bartel Van de Walle,

Bert Brugghemans,

Tina ComesAuthors Info & Claims

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Volume 95, Issue C

Pages 66 - 79

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2016.05.001

Published: 01 November 2016 Publication History

Abstract

In responding to an emergency, the actions of emergency response teams critically depend upon the situation awareness the team members have acquired. Situation awareness, and the design of systems to support it, has been a focus in recent emergency management research. In this paper, we introduce two interventions to the core processes of information processing and information sharing in emergency response teams to analyze their effect on the teams' situation awareness: (1) we enrich raw incoming information by adding a summary of the information received, and (2) we channel all incoming information to a central coordinator who then decides upon further distribution within the team. The effect of both interventions is investigated through a controlled experiment with experienced professional responders. Our results show distinctly different effects for information enrichment and centralization, both for the teams and for the coordinators within the team. While the interaction effects of both conditions cannot be discerned, it is apparent that processing non-enriched information and non-centralized information sharing leads to a worse overall team situation awareness. Our work suggests several implications for the design of emergency response management information systems. Focuses on situation awareness in crisis response teams.Proposes new approaches to information processing & sharing for situation awareness.Reports on a controlled experiment conducted with professional emergency responders.Shows the impact of enriched & centralized information on team situation awareness.Suggests design implications for emergency response information systems.

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Cited By

Comes T(2024)AI for crisis decisionsEthics and Information Technology10.1007/s10676-024-09750-026:1Online publication date: 14-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10676-024-09750-0
Shahbazi MBunker DSorrell T(2023)Communicating shared situational awareness in times of chaosJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.2481474:10(1185-1202)Online publication date: 7-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/asi.24814
Reuter CKaufhold MComes TKnodt MMühlhäuser M(2020)Mobile Resilience: Designing Mobile Interactive Systems for Societal and Technical Resilience22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services10.1145/3406324.3424590(1-3)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3406324.3424590
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Published In

cover image International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies Volume 95, Issue C

November 2016

112 pages

ISSN:1071-5819

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © Elsevier Ltd.

Publisher

Academic Press, Inc.

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 November 2016

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Cited By

Comes T(2024)AI for crisis decisionsEthics and Information Technology10.1007/s10676-024-09750-026:1Online publication date: 14-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10676-024-09750-0
Shahbazi MBunker DSorrell T(2023)Communicating shared situational awareness in times of chaosJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.2481474:10(1185-1202)Online publication date: 7-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/asi.24814
Reuter CKaufhold MComes TKnodt MMühlhäuser M(2020)Mobile Resilience: Designing Mobile Interactive Systems for Societal and Technical Resilience22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services10.1145/3406324.3424590(1-3)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3406324.3424590
Horita FBaptista Jde Albuquerque J(2020)Exploring the use of IoT Data for Heightened Situational Awareness in Centralised Monitoring Control RoomsInformation Systems Frontiers10.1007/s10796-020-10075-825:1(275-290)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10796-020-10075-8
Warnier MAlkema VComes TVan de Walle B(2020)Humanitarian access, interrupted: dynamic near real-time network analytics and mapping for reaching communities in disaster-affected countriesOR Spectrum10.1007/s00291-020-00582-042:3(815-834)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00291-020-00582-0
Ben Lazreg MNoori NComes TGoodwin M(2019)Not a Target. A Deep Learning Approach for a Warning and Decision Support System to Improve Safety and Security of Humanitarian Aid WorkersIEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence10.1145/3350546.3352551(378-382)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3350546.3352551
Purohit HDubrow SBannan B(2019)Designing a Multimodal Analytics System to Improve Emergency Response TrainingLearning and Collaboration Technologies. Designing Learning Experiences10.1007/978-3-030-21814-0_8(89-100)Online publication date: 26-Jul-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-21814-0_8
Nunavath VPrinz AComes T(2016)Identifying First Responders Information NeedsInternational Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management10.4018/IJISCRAM.20160101028:1(25-46)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.4018/IJISCRAM.2016010102

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