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Technology and Information Sharing in Disaster Relief

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  • Benedikte Bjerge
  • Nathan Clark
  • Peter Fisker
  • Emmanuel Raju

Abstract

This paper seeks to examine the extent to which technological advances can enhance inter-organizational information sharing in disaster relief. Our case is the Virtual OSOCC (On-Site Operations Coordination Centre) which is a part of the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) under the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). The online platform, which has been developing for more than a decade, provides a unique insight into coordination behaviour among disaster management agencies and individual actors. We build our study on the analysis of a complete database of user interaction including more than 20,000 users and 11,000 comments spread across approximately 300 disaster events. Controlling for types and severities of the events, location-specific vulnerabilities, and the overall trends, we find that the introduction of new features have led to increases in user activity. We supplement the data-driven approach with evidence from semi-structured interviews with administrators and key users, as well as a survey among all users specifically designed to capture and assess the elements highlighted by both interviews and data analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Benedikte Bjerge & Nathan Clark & Peter Fisker & Emmanuel Raju, 2016. "Technology and Information Sharing in Disaster Relief," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(9), pages 1-20, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0161783
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0161783
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ravallion, Martin, 2008. "Evaluating Anti-Poverty Programs," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 59, pages 3787-3846, Elsevier.
    2. E. L. Quarantelli, 1988. "Disaster Crisis Management: A Summary Of Research Findings," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 373-385, July.
    3. T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), 2008. "Handbook of Development Economics," Handbook of Development Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 5.
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    Cited by:

    1. Oliver L. Haimson & Albert J. Carter & Shanley Corvite & Brookelyn Wheeler & Lingbo Wang & Tianxiao Liu & Alexxus Lige, 2021. "The major life events taxonomy: Social readjustment, social media information sharing, and online network separation during times of life transition," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(7), pages 933-947, July.
    2. Josip Marić & Carlos Galera-Zarco & Marco Opazo-Basáez, 2022. "The emergent role of digital technologies in the context of humanitarian supply chains: a systematic literature review," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 319(1), pages 1003-1044, December.
    3. Jimoh Eniola Olaogbebikan & Richard Oloruntoba, 2019. "Similarities between disaster supply chains and commercial supply chains: a SCM process view," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 283(1), pages 517-542, December.
    4. Christian Wankmüller & Gerald Reiner, 2021. "Identifying Challenges and Improvement Approaches for More Efficient Procurement Coordination in Relief Supply Chains," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-23, February.
    5. Fredy Tantri & Sulfikar Amir, 2019. "Modeling a Simulation for Sociotechnical Resilience," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2019, pages 1-11, December.
    6. Muhammad Khan & Gohar Saleem Parvaiz & Alisher Tohirovich Dedahanov & Odiljon Sobirovich Abdurazzakov & Dilshodjon Alidjonovich Rakhmonov, 2022. "The Impact of Technologies of Traceability and Transparency in Supply Chains," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-18, December.
    7. Muhammad Khan & Amal Nasser Alshahrani & Julija Jacquemod, 2023. "Digital Platforms and Supply Chain Traceability for Robust Information and Effective Inventory Management: The Mediating Role of Transparency," Logistics, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-20, April.
    8. Duygu Pamukcu & Burcu Balcik, 2020. "A multi-cover routing problem for planning rapid needs assessment under different information-sharing settings," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 42(1), pages 1-42, March.

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