Why Information Matters: A Foundation for Resilience

Embracing Change: The Critical Role of Information, a research project by the Internews' Center for Innovation & Learning, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, combines Internews' longstanding effort to highlight the important role ofinformation with Rockefeller's groundbreaking work on resilience. The project focuses on three major aspects:- Building knowledge around the role of information in empowering communities to understand and adapt to different types of change: slow onset, long-term, and rapid onset / disruptive;- Identifying strategies and techniques for strengthening information ecosystems to support behavioral adaptation to disruptive change; and- Disseminating knowledge and principles to individuals, communities, the private sector, policymakers, and other partners so that they can incorporate healthy information ecosystems as a core element of their social resilience strategies

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N

Crisis Communication Patterns in Social Media during Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy was one of the deadliest and costliest of hurricanes over the past few decades. Many states experienced significant power outage, however many people used social media to communicate while having limited or no access to traditional information sources. In this study, we explored the evolution of various communication patterns using machine learning techniques and determined user concerns that emerged over the course of Hurricane Sandy. The original data included ~52M tweets coming from ~13M users between October 14, 2012 and November 12, 2012. We run topic model on ~763K tweets from top 4,029 most frequent users who tweeted about Sandy at least 100 times. We identified 250 well-defined communication patterns based on perplexity. Conversations of most frequent and relevant users indicate the evolution of numerous storm-phase (warning, response, and recovery) specific topics. People were also concerned about storm location and time, media coverage, and activities of political leaders and celebrities. We also present each relevant keyword that contributed to one particular pattern of user concerns. Such keywords would be particularly meaningful in targeted information spreading and effective crisis communication in similar major disasters. Each of these words can also be helpful for efficient hash-tagging to reach target audience as needed via social media. The pattern recognition approach of this study can be used in identifying real time user needs in future crises

Finding the right answer: an information retrieval approach supporting knowledge sharing

Knowledge Management can be defined as the effective strategies to get the right piece of knowledge to the right person in the right time. Having the main purpose of providing users with information items of their interest, recommender systems seem to be quite valuable for organizational knowledge management environments. Here we present KARe (Knowledgeable Agent for Recommendations), a multiagent recommender system that supports users sharing knowledge in a peer-to-peer environment. Central to this work is the assumption that social interaction is essential for the creation and dissemination of new knowledge. Supporting social interaction, KARe allows users to share knowledge through questions and answers. This paper describes KARe�s agent-oriented architecture and presents its recommendation algorithm

Network governance and climate change adaptation: collaborative responses to the Queensland floods

Abstract This research examines ways to build adaptive capacity to climate change, through a case study of organisations that participated in the response to Queensland’s major flood disaster in Queensland in 2010/11. The research applied a network governance approach, including social network analysis and qualitative investigations, to the communities of Rockhampton, Emerald and Brisbane. The study was designed to compare social networks across a range of different geographical; functional; and institutional and regulatory contexts.Primary data were obtained from organisations involved in disaster management and water management, through a telephone survey conducted March – September 2012. The network analyses examined collaboration and communication patterns; changes in the network structure from routine management to flood operations; similarities and differences between the geographic regions, and whether collaboration was correlated with trust. A cultural values analysis was then performed to identify the key values of the network actors in each region. Two workshops were conducted in Rockhampton and Brisbane to disseminate the findings to stakeholders, as well as to obtain feedback through group activities.A total of 63 organisations participated in the study. As the network analyses and visualisations indicated that the Rockhampton and Emerald networks were tightly interconnected, a single ‘Central Queensland’ (CQ) network was used for all subsequent analyses. In both Brisbane and CQ, slightly higher levels of collaboration amongst organisations were recorded during flood periods compared with routine operations; and organisations tended to provide, as well as receive, information and/or resources from their collaborators. Overall, both networks appeared to feature high trust, with only a low level of difficult ties (problematic relationships) being reported.The cultural analyses identified patterns of common values amongst participating organisations. In Brisbane, respondents placed a high value on shared information systems and resources; shared communication and language; as well as on collaboration and flexibility. In the CQ network, there was a greater emphasis on local solutions, community wellbeing and longitudinal issues (such as post-disaster supply chains for recovery). The workshop activities suggested that the current structure of Local Disaster Management Groups was heavily influential on broader network participation; and that defining an ‘effective’ disaster response was a complex issue.This study has demonstrated that a network governance approach can provide new ways of understanding the core elements of adaptive capacity, in areas such as enablers and barriers to adaptation, and translating capacity into adaptation. The key implications for policy and practice include the need for stakeholders to drive adaptation to climate change through collaboration and communication; the need for stakeholders to share a common goal and language; the need for better engagement with community, diversity and Indigenous organisations; the need to establish collaboration outside of disaster events; and the need for network governance systems to play an important role in helping to facilitate climate change adaptation. The areas identified for future research included further methodological development and longitudinal studies of social networks, understanding effective modes of communication, and the influence of the changing nature of regional Australian communities on climate change adaptation.Please cite this report as:Kinnear, S, Patison, K, Mann, J, Malone, E, Ross, V 2013, Network governance and climate change adaptation: collaborative responses to the Queensland floods, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, pp. 113.This research examines ways to build adaptive capacity to climate change, through a case study of organisations that participated in the response to Queensland’s major flood disaster in Queensland in 2010/11. The research applied a network governance approach, including social network analysis and qualitative investigations, to the communities of Rockhampton, Emerald and Brisbane. The study was designed to compare social networks across a range of different geographical; functional; and institutional and regulatory contexts.Primary data were obtained from organisations involved in disaster management and water management, through a telephone survey conducted March – September 2012. The network analyses examined collaboration and communication patterns; changes in the network structure from routine management to flood operations; similarities and differences between the geographic regions, and whether collaboration was correlated with trust. A cultural values analysis was then performed to identify the key values of the network actors in each region. Two workshops were conducted in Rockhampton and Brisbane to disseminate the findings to stakeholders, as well as to obtain feedback through group activities.A total of 63 organisations participated in the study. As the network analyses and visualisations indicated that the Rockhampton and Emerald networks were tightly interconnected, a single ‘Central Queensland’ (CQ) network was used for all subsequent analyses. In both Brisbane and CQ, slightly higher levels of collaboration amongst organisations were recorded during flood periods compared with routine operations; and organisations tended to provide, as well as receive, information and/or resources from their collaborators. Overall, both networks appeared to feature high trust, with only a low level of difficult ties (problematic relationships) being reported.The cultural analyses identified patterns of common values amongst participating organisations. In Brisbane, respondents placed a high value on shared information systems and resources; shared communication and language; as well as on collaboration and flexibility. In the CQ network, there was a greater emphasis on local solutions, community wellbeing and longitudinal issues (such as post-disaster supply chains for recovery). The workshop activities suggested that the current structure of Local Disaster Management Groups was heavily influential on broader network participation; and that defining an ‘effective’ disaster response was a complex issue.This study has demonstrated that a network governance approach can provide new ways of understanding the core elements of adaptive capacity, in areas such as enablers and barriers to adaptation, and translating capacity into adaptation. The key implications for policy and practice include the need for stakeholders to drive adaptation to climate change through collaboration and communication; the need for stakeholders to share a common goal and language; the need for better engagement with community, diversity and Indigenous organisations; the need to establish collaboration outside of disaster events; and the need for network governance systems to play an important role in helping to facilitate climate change adaptation. The areas identified for future research included further methodological development and longitudinal studies of social networks, understanding effective modes of communication, and the influence of the changing nature of regional Australian communities on climate change adaptation

On the use of serious games technology to facilitate large-scale training in cybercrime response

As technology becomes pervasive in everyday life, there are very few crimes that don’t have some ‘cyber’ element to them. The vast majority of crime now has some digital footprint; whether it’s from a CCTV camera, mobile phone or IoT device, there exists a vast range of technological devices with the ability to store digital evidence that could be of use during a criminal investigation. There is a clear requirement to ensure that digital forensic investigators have received up-to-date training on appropriate methods for the seizure, acquisition and analysis of digital devices. However, given the increasing number of crimes now involving a range of technological devices it is increasingly important for those police officers who respond to incidents of crime to have received appropriate training.The aim of our research is to transform the delivery of first responder training in tackling cybercrime.A project trialling the use of computer games technology to train officers in cybercrime response is described. A game simulating typical cybercrime scenes has been developed and its use in training first responders has been evaluated within Police Scotland. Overall, this approach to the large-scale provision of training (potentially to a whole force) is shown to offer potential

An Experimental Approach to Comparing Trust in Pastoral and Non-Pastoral Australia

It is generally held that rural Australians are more cooperative in character than their urban counterparts. To explore one aspect of this notion, we conducted an experiment which compared trust and trustworthiness among a sample of Australian senior high school students which included students with both pastoral and non-pastoral backgrounds. While student behaviour is unlikely to mimic adult behaviour, any significant differences between pastoral and non-pastoral students would suggest differences do exist between the social norms that guide pastoral and non-pastoral communities. We repeated our experiment at three different schools containing students from both pastoral and non-pastoral backgrounds, allowing us to draw comparisons. In total 78 students participated. Our experiments were based on similar experiments that have been applied across a range of contexts internationally (trust game/investment game). We did not find evidence of differences between students with pastoral and non-pastoral backgrounds, either in the level of trust in others or in trustworthiness, though our methods probably have a bias towards this conclusion. Our results concurred with other studies in showing that social distance is an important determinant of the level of cooperation.rural urban relations, economic behaviour, culture, arid zones, semiarid zones, pastoral society

Pathways to Coastal Resiliency: the Adaptive Gradients Framework

Current and future climate-related coastal impacts such as catastrophic and repetitive flooding, hurricane intensity, and sea level rise necessitate a new approach to developing and managing coastal infrastructure. Traditional “hard” or “grey” engineering solutions are proving both expensive and inflexible in the face of a rapidly changing coastal environment. Hybrid solutions that incorporate natural, nature-based, structural, and non-structural features may better achieve a broad set of goals such as ecological enhancement, long-term adaptation, and social benefits, but broad consideration and uptake of these approaches has been slow. One barrier to the widespread implementation of hybrid solutions is the lack of a relatively quick but holistic evaluation framework that places these broader environmental and societal goals on equal footing with the more traditional goal of exposure reduction. To respond to this need, the Adaptive Gradients Framework was developed and pilot-tested as a qualitative, flexible, and collaborative process guide for organizations to understand, evaluate, and potentially select more diverse kinds of infrastructural responses. These responses would ideally include natural, nature-based, and regulatory/cultural approaches, as well as hybrid designs combining multiple approaches. It enables rapid expert review of project designs based on eight metrics called “gradients”, which include exposure reduction, cost efficiency, institutional capacity, ecological enhancement, adaptation over time, greenhouse gas reduction, participatory process, and social benefits. The framework was conceptualized and developed in three phases: relevant factors and barriers were collected from practitioners and experts by survey; these factors were ranked by importance and used to develop the initial framework; several case studies were iteratively evaluated using this technique; and the framework was finalized for implementation. The article presents the framework and a pilot test of its application, along with resources that would enable wider application of the framework by practitioners and theorists