An official website of the United States government
ObjectiveWe aimed to identify opportunities for application of human factors knowledge base to mitigate disaster management (DM) challenges associated with the unique characteristics of the COVID-19 pandemic. BackgroundThe role of DM is to minimize and prevent further spread of the contagion over an extended period of time. This requires addressing large-scale logistics, coordination, and specialized training needs. However, DM-related challenges during the pandemic response and recovery are significantly different than with other kinds of disasters. MethodAn expert review was conducted to document issues relevant to human factors and ergonomics (HFE) in DM. ResultsThe response to the COVID-19 crisis has presented complex and unique challenges to DM and public health practitioners. Compared to other disasters and previous pandemics, the COVID-19 outbreak has had an unprecedented scale, magnitude, and propagation rate. The high technical complexity of response and DM coupled with lack of mental model and expertise to respond to such a unique disaster has seriously challenged the response work systems. Recent research has investigated the role of HFE in modeling DM systems’ characteristics to improve resilience, accelerating emergency management expertise, developing agile training methods to facilitate dynamically changing response, improving communication and coordination among system elements, mitigating occupational hazards including guidelines for the design of personal protective equipment, and improving procedures to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of response efforts. ConclusionThis short review highlights the potential for the field’s contribution to proactive and resilient DM for the ongoing and future pandemics.
more »
« less
Practical Insights into the Design of Future Disaster Response Training Simulations
A primary component of disaster response is training. These educational exercises provide responders with the knowledge and skills needed to be prepared when disasters happen. However, traditional training methods, such as high-fidelity simulations (e.g., real-life drills) and classroom courses, may fall short of providing effective and cost-efficient training that is needed for today's challenges. Advances in technology open a wide range of opportunities for training using computer-mediated simulations and exercises. These exercises include the use of mixed reality games and wearable computers. Existing studies report on the usefulness of these technologies for training purposes. This review paper synthesizes prior research and development of disaster response simulations and identifies challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned. Through this review, we provide researchers and designers with an overview of current practices in designing training simulations and contribute practical insights into the design of future disaster response training.
more »
« less
- PAR ID:
- 10564901
- Editor(s):
- Boersma, Kees; Tomaszeski, Brian
- Publisher / Repository:
- ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management
- Date Published:
- ISSN:
- 2411-3387
- ISBN:
- 978-0-692-12760-5
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 818-830
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- training simulation disaster response coordination mixed reality
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Rochester, NY, USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
In the field of hazards and disaster research, which often involves rapid reconnaissance assessments in unfamiliar cultural and social contexts, cultural issues have been exacerbated by the increasing frequency and intensity of disasters, which propel more researchers into the field and into contexts where they may lack community-based cultural knowledge. In quick response research, in particular, rarely is there time or adequate resources for individual researchers or research teams to properly prepare for new cultural contexts where they will study affected populations. The challenges associated with hazards and disaster researchers conducting these types of reconnaissance studies have come under increased ethical scrutiny, as technological advancements have simultaneously allowed for new and different types of data collection. Through a systematic review of the cultural competence literature, this project (1) examines existing cultural competence strategies, interventions, tools, plans, and training protocols as applicable for hazards and disaster researchers; (2) introduces a comprehensive framework for building cultural competence for hazards and disaster researchers; and (3) identifies gaps and high-priority research areas to advance cultural competence among members of the research community. This research argues that applying a cultural competence framework in hazards and disaster research offers the ability to improve interplay between researchers and participants (disaster survivors, emergency practitioners, and other service agencies) in order to better serve the individuals, families, and communities most affected by natural hazards, social inequalities, and consequent disasters. This dataset includes all the publications for this systematic literature review, which were published from January 1, 1960 to March 20, 2018 in English, including journal articles, books, book chapters, and grey literature (governmental and non-governmental organization reports).more » « less
-
Peer assessment, as a form of collaborative learning, can engage students in active learning and improve their learning gains. However, current teaching platforms and programming environments provide little support to integrate peer assessment for in-class programming exercises. We identified challenges in conducting such exercises and adopting peer assessment through formative interviews with instructors of introductory programming courses. To address these challenges, we introduce PuzzleMe, a tool to help Computer Science instructors to conduct engaging in-class programming exercises. PuzzleMe leverages peer assessment to support a collaboration model where students provide timely feedback on their peers' work. We propose two assessment techniques tailored to in-class programming exercises: live peer testing and live peer code review. Live peer testing can improve students' code robustness by allowing them to create and share lightweight tests with peers. Live peer code review can improve code understanding by intelligently grouping students to maximize meaningful code reviews. A two-week deployment study revealed that PuzzleMe encourages students to write useful test cases, identify code problems, correct misunderstandings, and learn a diverse set of problem-solving approaches from peers.more » « less
-
null; null; null (Ed.)Emergency response training is needed to remember and implement emergency operation plans (EOP) and procedures over long periods until an emergency occurs. There is also a need to develop an effective mechanism of teamwork under emergency conditions such as bomb blasts and active shooter events inside a building. One way to address these needs is to create a collaborative training module to study these emergencies and perform virtual evacuation drills. This paper presents a collaborative virtual reality (VR) environment for performing emergency response training for fire and smoke as well as for active shooter training scenarios. The collaborative environment is implemented in Unity 3D and is based on run, hide, and fight mode of emergency response. Our proposed collaborative virtual environment (CVE) is set up on the cloud and the participants can enter the VR environment as a policeman or as a civilian. We have used game creation as a metaphor for developing a CVE platform for conducting training exercises for different what-if scenarios in a safe and cost-effective manner. The novelty of our work lies in modeling behaviors of two kinds of agents in the environment: user-controlled agents and computer-controlled agents. The computer controlled agents are defined with preexisting rules of behaviors whereas the user controlled agents are autonomous agents that provide controls to the user to navigate in the CVE at their own pace. Our contribution lies in our approach to combine these two approaches of behavior to perform emergency response training for building evacuation.more » « less
-
Wearable computers are poised to impact disaster response, so there is a need to determine the best interfaces to support situation awareness, decision support, and communication. We present a disaster response wearable design created for a mixed reality live-action role playing design competition, the Icehouse Challenge. The challenge, an independent event in which the authors were competitors, offers a simulation game environment in which teams compete to test wearable designs. In this game, players move through a simulated disaster space that requires team coordination and physical exertion to mitigate virtual hazards and stabilize virtual victims. Our design was grounded in disaster response and team coordination practice. We present our design process to develop wearable computer interfaces that integrate physiological and virtual environmental sensor data and display actionable information through a head-mounted display. We reflect on our observations from the live game, discuss challenges, opportunities, and design implications for future disaster response wearables to support collaboration.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
