Emergency Response Systems: Past, Present, and Future ISCRAM 04 Presentation

1
Emergency Response SystemsPast, Present, and
Future(ISCRAM 04 Presentation)

• Murray Turoff
• Information Systems Department
• New Jersey Institute of Technology
• http//is.njit.edu/turoff
• (for long paper)
• turoff_at_njit.edu
• http//is.njit.edu

2
(No Transcript)
3
Planned Topics

• Past
• Nature of an Emergency
• OEP lore and experience
• Present
• Requirements for ERS
• Conceptual Design of DERMIS
• Dynamic Emergency Response Management Information
  Systems (DERMIS)
• First Layer of defense for the Public Body
• Future Normative Objectives

4
Emergency Management Characteristics

• Unpredictable
• Events
• Who will be involved
• What information will be needed
• What resources will be needed
• What actions will be taken, when, where, and by
  who
• No time for training, meeting, or planning
• No contingency plan that fits perfectly

5
Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP)

• Existed until 1973 in the Executive Offices of
  the President
• Derivative of OSS (Office of Special Services,
  World War II)
• Centralized civilian command and control in any
  crisis situation
• natural disasters, national strikes, commodity
  shortages, wartime situations, industry
  priorities, wage price freeze
• Command resources of all federal, state, local
  and industrial sources
• Could incorporate personal as needed from any
  source
• Did contingency planning and utilized a large
  community of experts and professionals on a
  national bases

6
OEP Wisdom I

• An emergency system must be regularity used to
  work in a real emergency
• People are working intense 14-18 hour days and
  cannot be interrupted
• Timely tacking of what is happening is critical
• Delegation of authority a must and providing
  related data and information up, down, and
  laterally is critical
• Plans are in constant modification

7
OEP Wisdom II

• Roles are the constant in an emergency and who is
  in a role may vary unexpectedly
• Operation is 24/7 for extended periods (no one
  person can execute a role)
• Training people in multiple roles is very
  necessary
• Roles and their privileges must be explicitly
  defined in the software of the response system

8
OEP Wisdom III

• Supporting confidence in a decision by the best
  possible timely information
• Necessary Properties
• Free exchange of information
• Delegation of authority
• Decision accountability
• Decision oversight
• Information source identification
• Information overload reduction

9
Recent Supporting WisdomHale 1997

• . . . the key obstacle to effective crisis
  response is the communication needed to access
  relevant data or expertise and to piece together
  an accurate understandable picture of reality

10
Other Supporting Wisdom Dynes Quarenteli 1977

• Coordination by feedback viewed as failure of
  planning and failure of coordination by most
  organizations. Instead plan should focus on
  improving and facilitating feedback

11
Threat Rigidity Syndrome

• Stress sets in, possible from
• Fatigue, long hours, cognitive conflicts, high
  uncertainty
• Information Overload and/or uncertainty of right
  data being there
• Responsibilities for lives of others
• Not knowing if your going to get better
  information soon enough to delay the decision
• Choice of following a formula or engaging in
  problem solving, creativity, and/or improvisation

12
Social Needs of intense groups

• Rely on one another
• Trust the others to do their job
• Frank and open viewpoints
• Willingness to handover roles and
  responsibilities
• Creation of a team spirit
• The above needs to be encouraged through the
  system design

13
Human Computer Challenges(skip!!)

• System is a helper not a boss
• System allows variable problem solving methods
• Reduction of information overload
• Minimization of execution difficulty
• High degree of comprehension
• High degree of tailoring by individual
• Encourage creativity and improvisation
• Support decision confidence
• Monitor performance and effort for possible
  fatigue
• Multimodal interfaces

14
Smart Requirements for Emergency Group
Communications(skip!!)

• Determine what individuals are looking for and
  not finding
• Guide individuals to those interested in the same
  thing at the same time
• Piece relevant data together
• Alert individuals to anything falling in the
  cracks
• Provide high confidence of a person knowing they
  have the best information possible at the moment

15
Integration Requirements (skip!!)

• Fire, Police, Public Works
• Public Health, Hospitals, Clinics, Doctors,
  Community resources (e.g. bulldozers,
  contractors, boats, generators, etc.)
• Utilities, Contractors, Equipment
• State Agencies, National Guard, State Police,
  Other local regional Governments
• Federal Agencies, Civil Defense, FEMA, Homeland
  Security
• Non-Profits, Service Organizations,
  Professionals, Community Groups
• Forms of communication

16
DERMIS Conceptual Design

• Dynamic Emergency Response Management Information
  System
• (The first layer of defense for the public body)

17
Six Specific Interaction Design Criteria

• Metaphors understood by professionals
• Human roles built in
• Others in JITTA paper
• Notifications integrated into communications
• Context visibility
• Semantic Hypertext relationships
• List processing at user level

18
Emergency Metaphor

• All emergencies have events
• Time logged and archived
• Serves dispatch function
• Used after emergency to understood what took
  place
• Often separate events on different systems for
  each agency involved
• Consider dynamic database of events integrated
  across all agencies

19
Metaphors I

• Log of an Event
• Root Event and Sub-events
• Lateral Events
• Each event triggered by specified role or roles
• Event Template
• A collection of events possible within the
  context of a given root or trigger event
• USERS ABLE TO CREATE NEW EVENT TEMPLATES (most
  important!!)

20
Metaphors II

• Events have semantic links to all relevant
  information and data (dynamic menus)
• Forms for the collection of data
• Resources of concern
• Maps and Pictures
• Appropriate command choices
• Appropriate status options
• Parent, children, and Lateral events

21
Example Resource Request Event Template

• Resource Request (location, situation)
• Allocation (or deny, delay, partial allocation)
• In transit
• Arrival of resource
• Status change in resource
• Status change in situation
• Recycle event
• Resource maintenance, reassignment
• Return transit
• Tailored event
• Completion event

22
Event Types(skip!)

• Triggering/root events
• Resource requests
• Resource allocations
• Information requests
• Situation reports
• Completion announcements
• Status change
• Warnings/Alerts
• Leads/Speculations
• Role changes
• Interrupted events
• Suspended events
• Archived events

23
Roles in DERMIS

• Characterized by
• Events the role can trigger
• Events the role must respond to
• Required reactions to events
• Responsibilities for
• Actions, Decisions
• Reporting of data
• Assessing Information
• Oversight, assessment
• Resource maintenance
• Reporting, Liaison
• USERS MUST BE ABLE TO TAILOR ROLES IN THE SYSTEM
  (MOST IMPORTANT)

24
Fundamental Roles(skip)

• Resource Requests (people or things)
• Resource Allocation
• Resource Maintenance
• Resource Acquisition
• Reporting and updating situations(!!!)
• Edit, organize, and summarize information
• Analysis of data and Situations
• Oversight, consulting, advising
• Alerting and scheduling
• Assigning and scheduling roles
• Coordination among different areas
• Priority and Strategy Setting

25
Summary on DERMIS

• A transaction system integrated with a structured
  group communication system
• Roles and event templates can be created and
  modified at any time, e.g. the system can be
  evolved by the users
• Can be used for all phases of the emergency
  response process
• Analyses, Planning, training, evaluation, and
  recovery
• Can be used for all types of emergencies
• Can be used to support Online Communities

26
Normative Objectives for Successful Emergency
Response Information Systems (ERIS) What we want
to see!

• Used by every organization in the society
• Used all the time by individuals in organizations
  
• Used for any emergency or irregular event
• Easily integrated across organizations
• Pervasive technology in society

27
Challenges to Objectives

• Currently ERISs are
• Highly specialized
• Relatively expensive
• Infrequent use
• Specialized training and personnel
• Assumed to be the problem of governments

28
How do we get from here to there?

• Make emergency response everyday behavior by
  merging and integrating emergency response and
  the audit process!
• A long term plan to reach a normative goal!

29
Negative Emergency Situations

• Strike
• Court Case
• Cost overrun
• Delivery delay
• New regulation
• Terrorist action!!!!!
• Supply shortage
• Natural Disaster
• Takeover threat
• Production delay
• Product malfunction
• Contract Negotiation
• Loss of a key employee
• Loss of a key customer
• Regulatory Investigation
• New Competitive product

30
Positive Emergency Situations(in Korean the word
emergency means both disaster and opportunity!)

• Responding to an RFP
• Winning a large contract
• Developing a new product
• Creating a long term plan
• Taking over another company
• Too many orders for a product
• Employee shortage
• Shortage of raw materials
• Production problems
• Creating a task force or committee

31
Audit Objectives I

• Foundations of Auditing
• Theory of Inspired Confidence
• Limperg, Netherlands, 70 years ago
• Confidence of the public (citizens and investors)
  in organizations
• Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
• Protect the interests of public investors
• SARBOX for short

32
Audit Objectives II

• Audit Implications
• Assurance of the Decision Process for all
  financial/economic transactions (not the
  decision)
• People (roles), documents (data, information),
  analysis, oversight, decisions
• Includes determination of VALUE and RISKS (!!!)
• Includes stewardship of the managers and
  professionals
• Assurance needs of society change over time

33
Audit Questions

• Regular Decision Processes when there are
  problems detected
• What is the relevant data/information?
• Who has the decision authority?
• Who will make the decision?
• How was authority delegated?
• Who advises/consults on the decision?
• Who/what is impacted by the decision?
• Who needs to know about the decision?
• Does everyone concerned have access to the
  relevant data/information?
• Who supplies data/information?
• When must the decision be made?
• What is the expectation of additional
  data/information and when?

34
ER decision making issues

• Complications added by Emergency Response
  Decision Processes
• Dynamic delegation of Authority
• Fluid accountability/responsibility
• Dynamic formulation of group concerned with a
  decision
• Critical time constraints
• Interdependence of transactions/events
• Dynamic role changes
• Conflicts for resources
• Unpredictability of environment

35
Create an EPTrust

• Emergency Preparedness Trust
• Sets of controls to measure the current degree of
  Emergency Preparedness of an organization
• Natural extension of security and recovery
  auditing in Information
• Can be developed now and applied to organizations
• A critical first step

36
Technology Changes I

• Continuous Auditing
• Continuous tests of controls
• Continuous monitoring of all organizational
  decision process
• Continuous monitoring, capture, reporting, and
  evaluation of data
• Development of performance measures

37
Technology Change II

• Organizational Process Design
• Integration of the flow of data/information
  across functional domains
• Making decision requirements explicit
• Supply Chain Management
• Customer Relationship Management
• Virtual teams, Outsourcing
• Enterprise/Strategic Resource Planning ERP, SRP,
  etc.

38
Observations I

• Emergency decisions require the same assurance
  process as regular decisions and then some!
• Technology is moving organizations in the
  direction of enterprise wide systems and
  ultimately to continuous auditing as well.
• Continuous auditing is the backbone for any type
  of decision assurance process.

39
Observations II

• CA makes the integration of Emergency Response
  Systems relatively easy
• Insures training and use by employees
• It would spread ER systems throughout the society
• It will reduce the costs of such systems
• Adding intelligent tools will be easier
• Confidence in making critical decisions will be
  higher
• Stress will be reduced improvisation will be
  enhanced
• Easier integration across organizations

40
Dangers of Computer Monitoring of Decision
Processes

• Computerization often leads to attempts to
  simplify decisions so they can be modeled and
  programmed.
• The approach needed is to leave complex decisions
  and problem coping to the emergency response
  managers and professionals
• Making roles of managers and professionals
  explicit in the software and integrating that
  into Virtual Team support Systems is a solution
  to this problem if it includes
• Tying of software supported roles to events
  defining decision requirements
• Integration with the flow of data and information
  

41
Some Key Research TOPICS in ER

• Virtual Command and Control Centers
• Stimulating creativity or improvising
• On-line communities Generate trust, social
  networks, cohesiveness, and community involvement
• Investigations of decision scenarios and possible
  audit controls
• Decision Support Tools for all ER phases
• Multimodal Multimedia Augmentation
• New Training Approaches
• Distributive System Integration

42
Not an easy road to take

• Roles in Disaster Cause Rift in City Despite
  Sept. 11, Fire Dept and Police Lack Accord
• by William Bashbaum and Michelle ODonnell, New
  York Times, 4/3/2004, pages A1 B4
• More than two and a half years laterthe city
  still lacks what many experts say is the most
  basic and essential toola formal agreement
  governing what city agency will lead the response
  at the scene of any catastrophic accident

43
The problem of KNOWLEDGE
44
Full and future papers

• The Design of Dynamic Emergency Response
  Management Information Systems DERMIS) Via
  http//is.njit.edu/turoff, also accepted for
  Jitta
• Meetings for papers on this topic AMCIS 2004 and
  ISCRAM 2004
• http//howe.stevens.edu/AMCIS2004
• http//www.tilburguniversity.nl/ISCRAM2004
• Future journal issue
• http//jitta.org
• Assuring Homeland Security Continuous
  Monitoring, Control Assurance of Emergency
  Preparedness, by Alles, Kogan, Vasarhelyi
  (Rutgers) and Hiltz, Turoff (NJIT), Working
  Paper, March 2004