CFP: 5th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management
Washington, DC, USA
May 4-7, 2008
http://www.iscram.org/
Deadline: December 21, 2007
CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A SPECIAL ACADEMIC SESSION ON
Information Coordination between Heterogeneous Emergency and Relief Agencies
Session ID: ORG-01
Motivation
In times of emergency organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, operate in conditions of extreme uncertainty. The uncertainty has many sources, including the sporadic nature of emergencies, the lack of warning associated with emergencies, and the wide array of actors who may or may not respond to any one emergency. This uncertainty increases the need for information, but at the same time research has shown that the amount of operational information flowing through an organization during an emergency can be overwhelming. In these circumstances appropriate ICTs could make substantial improvements in the relief process.
Research Area
While improved coordination is a noble goal itself, the real aim is to improve emergency and relief services. To date it is unclear just how much improvement in relief services result from improved coordination in the ICT realm. While anecdotal evidence of benefits exists to ignite efforts, a more systematic analysis of the ICT coordination benefits (or lack thereof) is called for. Successful ICT coordination in emergency relief will require that organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, to both overcome the challenges and take advantage of the benefits presented by their environment. These inter-organizational challenges are of both a general and relief-context nature as well as relating specifically to coordination ICTs. While the environment can pose many challenges to coordination, the inherent interdependencies can also facilitate coordination. Empirical studies on inter-organizational coordination have found that informal contacts, good historical relations with other organizations, common commitment, existence of common language, accessibility to other organizations, professionalism, standardization, structural similarities, scarce resources and frequent external communications all serve to enhance coordination efforts.
Topics
Some non-exhaustive examples of topics that could contribute to this session are
• Models of organizational structures leading to improved coordination and collaboration between agencies
• Models of how collaboration and coordination might impact the emergency response supply chain
• Models of 3rd party coordination bodies between organizations
• Models of shared organizational and technological infrastructure
• Coordination and Collaboration intra-agency and inter-agencies
• Tools for the cooperation in normality and emergency situations
• Information Interoperability among agencies
• Sharing of ICT infrastructures in the emergency area
• Cooperation among agencies
• Coordination of supplies for the emergency relief
• Coordination and collaboration between operative centres and operative teams
• Leadership of multi-organizational response teams
• Open source ICT solutions
Type of contribution:
• Academic Session: we invite researchers from academia or research labs to present their research or research-in-progress papers. Prospective presenters submit a regular research (or research-in-progress) paper.
Important Notice:
• All submissions must be formatted according to the ISCRAM 2008 formatting guidelines. Templates and instructions are published on www.iscram.org.
• All submissions must be submitted through the ISCRAM 2008 conference paper submission web page at www.conftool.com/iscram2008. Instructions for the ConfTool system can be found on www.iscram.org.
• All papers and presentations will go through a double-blind review process, leading to a decision of (conditional) acceptance or rejection.
• Accepted papers will be included in the ISCRAM 2008 program and published in the official proceedings if and only if
(1) the paper is formatted according to the instructions,
(2) the authors sign the copyright transfer form and
(3) one of the authors registers for the conference and pays the registration fee before the cut-off date for early registration.
• Authors who have multiple papers accepted can only register for and present one paper at the conference; co-authors need to register separately.
Session Chairs:
Andrea H. Tapia, Ph.D. atapia@ist.psu.edu
College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University
Carleen Maitland, Ph.D. cmaitland@ist.psu.edu
College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University
Important ISCRAM 2008 Dates:
December 21, 2007: Paper submission deadline
February 10, 2008: Notification of (conditional) acceptance
February 22, 2008: Early registration deadline
March 1, 2008: Final camera-ready paper submission deadline
May 4-7, 2008: ISCRAM 2008
About ISCRAM:
The ISCRAM Community is a worldwide community of researchers, scholars, teachers, students, practitioners and policy makers interested or actively involved in the subject of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. At its annual international conference alternating between the US and Europe, the ISCRAM Community gathers to present and discuss the latest research and developments in this growing area during an interactive and stimulating 3 day program. The ISCRAM Community also organizes an International Summer School for PhD students and ISCRAM-CHINA, an annual conference for ISCRAM research in China. All information on ISCRAM can be found at http://www.iscram.org
ISCRAM 2008 will be held from 4-7 May at the George Washington University (GWU) located in Washington, DC, USA. The conference will be hosted by GWU’s Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management (ICDRM). All details on this conference will be made available via the ISCRAM website mentioned above.
