Intern Report: Coordinating Efforts by Volunteer and Technical Communities for Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Relief

Erin Boehmer, Research Assistant Commons Lab of the Science and Technology Innovation Program Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars July 22, 2011

On my honor as a University student, on this assignment I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid as defined by the Honor Guidelines for papers in Science, Technology and Society courses.
Erin Boehmer

Executive Summary
Volunteer and Technical Communities (V&TCs), are global networks composed of technical professionals and volunteers with expertise in social media, geographic information systems (GIS), database management, and/or online campaigns. These communities are quickly redefining disaster preparedness, response, and relief, but face organizational, technical, social, and political challenges (detailed in this paper). For example, many V&TCs have distributed internal structures that support open source software development and prevent against slowmoving bureaucracy. This design challenges the status quo of humanitarian aid organizations and government agencies and makes interactions amongst parties challenging as V&TCs work to gain trust and acceptance and adhere to established protocols and procedures. The coordination of future endeavors among V&TCs would assist in addressing such issues. It is unclear, however, what coordinated step would most effectively mitigate or eliminate the effects of current challenges within the disaster response community. In this analysis, I propose four alternative strategies. The first calls for the discussion and establishment of protocols to which relevant V&TCs must adhere. The second establishes a coordination board, composed of leaders in modern disaster relief, to develop standard systems that V&TCs are encouraged to implement. The third develops V&TCs presence in academia. The final option suggests that V&TCs continue developing separately and informally interact when necessary. After rating the alternatives based on efficacy, cost, time, and political feasibility, I conclude that establishing protocols and standards specific to the different types of V&TCs, developing a standard plug-in for after-action data collection, and branding the term V&TC, will best bolster V&TCs efforts to enhance data collection and communication during disasters and crises.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Current Issues within the V&TC Community Strategizing Future Relationships Among V&TCs Proposed Alternatives
Establish a Set of Protocols and Standards Establish a V&TC Coordination Board Develop a Presence in Academia Continue Developing Separately with Informal Interactions

i iii iv 1 5 11 11 11 13 14 15 15 16 23 26 26 29 35 39

Criteria for Evaluation Analysis of Alternatives Recommendations and Conclusion Appendix A: V&TC Profiles
Geeks Without Bounds Standby Task Force (Crisis Mappers) CrisisCommons

Works Cited

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List of Figures
Table 1: Ability of Alternatives to Address V&TCs' Challenges ................................................. 19 Table 2: Evaluation Matrix ........................................................................................................... 19

Figure 1: Ushahidi-Haiti map. ........................................................................................................ 3 Figure 2: Internal structure of GWOB.. ........................................................................................ 20 Figure 3: Internal structure of the Standby Task Force. ............................................................... 20 Figure 4: SBTF Workflow. ........................................................................................................... 20 Figure 5: SBTF Webinar Interface ............................................................................................... 20 Figure 6: CrisisCommons Structure. ............................................................................................ 20

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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all those with the Science and Technology Innovation Program at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for exposing me to the excitement and challenges inherent within emerging technology policy. I would specifically like to express my gratitude to Lea Shanley and David Rejeski for their dedication and mentorship during my time at the Center. I would also like to thank the Policy Internship Program at the University of Virginia, specifically Michael Rodemeyer and Jim Turner, for providing me with the opportunity to explore the world of technology policy in Washington, DC. Thank you to all of those within the Volunteer and Technical Communities (V&TCs) and related organizations for giving me your time and explaining the intricacies of V&TCs structures and interactions, specifically Andrew Turner (CrisisCommons), Kirk Morris (Standby Task Force), Willow Brugh (Geeks Without Bounds), Mark Prutsalis (Sahana Software Foundation), Nigel McNie (Programming Volunteer for CrisisMappers, CrisisCommons, and SBTF), John Crowley (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative), and Stuart Gill and Will Pate (Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery). Without your contributions, this endeavor would not have been possible. I would also like to acknowledge those who reviewed earlier versions of this report and offered their valuable edits and insight, including Joe Filvarof, Robbin Boehmer, Lea Shanley, Kirk Morris, Patrick Meier, Nigel McNie, and Mark Prutsalis.

Introduction
In the past, officials and volunteers responding to disasters reported a sense of chaos and desperation resulting from devastated communications infrastructures on the ground. A 2006 committee commissioned by the Executive Office of the President to report on lessons learned from the federal response to Hurricane Katrina describes the scene:

On the day of landfall, authoritative reporting from the field was extremely difficult to obtain because of the widespread destruction of communications infrastructure. [L]ocal, State, and Federal officials were forced to depend on a variety of conflicting reports from a combination of media, government and private sources, many of which continued to provide inaccurate or incomplete information throughout the day, further clouding the understanding of what was occurring in New Orleans. The New Orleans Mayors Office operated out of a Hyatt Hotel for several days after Hurricane Katrinas landfall, unable to establish reliable communications with anyone outside the hotel for nearly forty-eight hours. This meant that the Mayor was neither able to effectively command the local efforts, nor was he able to guide the State and Federal support for two days following the storm. Louisiana State Senator Robert Barham, chairman of the State Senate's homeland security committee, summed up the situation in Louisiana by stating, People could not communicate. It got to the point that people were literally writing messages on paper, putting them in bottles and dropping them from helicopters to other people on the ground. (Executive Office of the President, 2006, pp. 42-43)

Since Hurricane Katrina, the world has seen cellphones transform from simple voice devices to digital devices as people send text messages, browse and post content online, and explore the functionalities of applications. The norm for most people is no longer a landline home phone, but rather personal, high-bandwidth cell phones running on a 3G or 4G network. Therefore, in response to communication failures during crises and the new standards of communication technologies, the disaster relief community has seen the rise of Volunteer and Technical Communities (V&TCs)1. V&TCs are networks of technical professionals with deep expertise in social media, geographic information systems (GIS), database management, [and] online campaigns [who apply] their skills to some of the hardest elements of the disaster risk management process (GFDRR Labs, 2010). These volunteers are able to harness the growing power of applications like Twitter and Facebook, devices such as Androids and iPads, skills like database design and computer hacking, and methodologies such as Scrum development or Extreme Programming (XP) in order to improve on ground communication and organization practices.

During the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, V&TCs worked with a noticeable presence. Remotely located technical volunteers developed Mission 4636, which established a free phone number (4636) in order to allow people on the ground to text their requests for medical care, food,

The term V&TC is used in this paper as the official terminology for a network of volunteer and professional technical workers. Both VTC and V&TC are commonly used to describe the organizations (due to the different brandings in the Volunteer and Technical Communities: Open Development report and the Disaster 2.0: The Future of Information Sharing in Humanitarian Emergencies report). To some, the title Volunteer Technology Community only credits volunteer positions, disregarding the dedicated workers within the field who are paid (M. Prutsalis, personal communication, July 17, 2011). Therefore, only the term V&TC should be used in the fut ure in order to credit all those who give their time within the community and to avoiding wasting valuable volunteer time on a relatively unproductive debate. In order for the nascent network to establish a professional reputation, the community must agree on how to officially refer to itself.

water, security and shelter from any Digicel / Comcel-Voila device and receive aid (Mission 4636, n.d.). This service garnered about 80,000 messages, predominantly in Haitian Kreyol, which workers and volunteers translated, geolocated, and categorized via online crowdsourcing platforms which sorted the information by need and priority, and distributed it to various emergency responders and aid organizations. [T]he service scaled up about one week after the earthquake to include [responses such as] serious injuries, requests for fresh drinking water, security, unaccompanied children and clusters of requests for food, and even childbirths (Mission 4636, n.d.). Often these technologists mapped the Mission 4636 messages and other crowdsourced data using open source platforms such as Ushahidi or OpenStreetMap (see the Ushahidi-Haiti map below in Figure 1).

Figure 1: Ushahidi-Haiti map. Red circles show the number of reports within that area. When clicked, a user may choose to view the contents of the reports. On the right side panel, users may choose to display only certain categories of messages and requests (taken from http://haiti.ushahidi.com).

Others created applications such as the We Have, We Need application, which could be accessed via smart phone or computer. The application worked as a sort of Craigslist, pairing victims in need of resources and aid organizations navigating to where help was most needed. The application helped officials by routing information out of the disaster, where communication systems were devastated, into information systems in Washington, DC or New Zealand where volunteers could quickly, calmly, and intelligently coordinate response efforts (HaitiVoiceNeeds, 2010). V&TCs also were able to provide reachback support to the United Nations (UN), the European Union, United States and across the globe, making their supercomputers and large storage arrays available for processing imagery, managing translation workflows, and serving large data sets (GFDRR Labs, 2010).

The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (2011) also recognized V&TCs as a powerful tool for community empowerment: When crisis responders ask for (or themselves build) new features, they are also asking the community to change the range of possible behaviors that users perform in the software which is roughly analogous to asking for a change to law of policy in a real-world town or city (p. 40). In this way, the applications and tools that V&TCs develop may play a growing role in disaster preparedness and planning, as crowdsourced data can be gathered from local residents to inform authorities of failing infrastructure or, in reverse, preparedness lessons can be disseminated to at risk communities.

Many of the prevalent V&TCs today have brought forth beneficial changes within the realm of disaster response; their formulation, however, has led to a new set of challenges and complexities within and among the V&TCs, humanitarian relief organizations, and Federal and State and local governments.

Current Issues within the V&TC Community

Volunteers and professionals working in the nascent field of volunteer-based technology development for disaster preparedness, response, and relief have expressed various problems that V&TCs must address in order to improve their effectiveness. While some of these issues deal with the organizational and technical aspects of software development, others are social and political in nature and surface when the groups interact.

Disaster-affected communities are often a diverse group of people as crises affect individuals differing in age, culture, and economic background. Therefore, one of the most fundamental considerations when building applications and technologies for modern disaster relief is to understand the needs of people of different backgrounds in divergent contexts especially if developers intend to deploy the project during more than one event. Yet the challenge of creating a universal design is inherent in consumer technology and has been described as the need to balance ideals and the pragmatics of incorporating those ideals within a context of multiple voices, cultural differences, material constraints, localized needs, and as ironic as it may sound other ideals. (Coleman, 2004).

Strategic design, however, has proven to be especially challenging for V&TC developers due to the unpredictable nature of disasters and the limited availability of volunteers involved in V&TCs. Many organizations have only a few regularly active members during static times, but witness an influx of interest when a disaster strikes (A. Turner, personal communication, June 8, 2011). A lack of activity during times of non-disaster leads to a lack of planning and preventative measures and results in volunteers having to catch-up to the influx of pleas from victims after a crisis takes place (M. Prutsalis, personal communication, July 18, 2011). Some organizations,

such as Random Hacks of Kindness, the Standby Task Force, and Geeks Without Bounds, have notably risen to the challenge of inspiring volunteerism and development during static times by engaging in tasks such as creating custom Ushahidi instances ready for deployment and hosting mobile disaster app hackathons (see Appendix A). Yet there still exists a need to devise a robust post-crisis system to regularly and methodically collect user feedback and to gather statistical and qualitative data regarding the technologies. One reason for the lack of post-crisis analysis of projects effectiveness and usability is that volunteers feel burnt-out, [feel] no responsibility, [are] not receiving pay, and [do not want to] deal with paperwork (N. McNie, personal communication, June 3, 2011).

Some V&TCs have devised ways to collect feedback on applications and response systems, but focus mainly on feedback from volunteers rather than victims. Feedback, in these circumstances, is often collected through Skype chats and forums after the disaster has taken place. Nigel McNie, a volunteer during the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand, emphasizes the importance of collecting information from crisis victims by interviewing people face-to-face (personal communication, August 23, 2011). Personal surveying would mitigate the possibility of data suffering from "user bias." If information is only collected digitally or through secondary sources (such as the volunteers who interacted with victims), the feedback will fail to incorporate the opinions of people who looked at an app and got confused/frustrated [and left the app] without giving any feedback (Nigel McNie, personal communication, August 23, 2011). Collecting information on the ground also would allow V&TCs to gauge how far knowledge of the map percolated throughout the community. [If information is collected through other means, it is likely that] only people who have heard of the [apps] will be giving feedback (Nigel

McNie, personal communication, August 23, 2011). Despite the potential for personal surveying on the ground to reveal critical information about how an application was used, few V&TCs have established protocols for promptly interviewing victims and collecting information on applications after a disaster.

Another issue for V&TCs with dwindling volunteer bases during static times is raising awareness of their groups existence within the general public. Even within the disaster response and relief community some field staff members [during the earthquake in Haiti] were [only] tangentially aware of the resources that were available, [and] were too busy to take advantage of the resources or to consider the changes to workflows and methods that these new information resources would entail (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, 2011). While some groups, such as Ushahidi (a non-profit organization that develops free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping) have enjoyed publicity in widely viewed sources such as The Washington Post and The New York Times (Turner, 2009) (Giridharadas, 2010), others have yet to gain recognition beyond their direct circles despite significant contributions to the field. Some V&TCs find, however, that they gain significant recognition from government, humanitarian organizations, and IT companies during disasters when authorities in the disaster afflicted regions turn to crowdsourcing technologies to mitigate the effects of the crises and stimulate communication (McManus, 2011).

Including more volunteers in the V&TCs operations highlights the importance of cultivating trust with partnering organizations and with victims and volunteers working on the ground. As John Hagel III of McKinsey & Co. and John Seely Brown of the University of Southern

California (2006) explain, knowledge does not flow it tends to be, in fact, very sticky. Unlike information which can be more readily codified and disseminated, knowledge tends to reside in individuals and it is very context specific. For this reason, knowledge sharing typically requires trust-based relationships and a sharing of practice (p. 11). A feasible way to increase trust among V&TCs, established disaster aid organizations, and victims is to work in coordination with established humanitarian communities and governments; yet many of the technologists that are building new platforms for imagery, mapping, and information sharing have [or are perceived as having] limited field experience and [supposedly] an engineers approach of just do it (GFDRR Labs, 2010). This stereotype of the V&TC hacker community clashes with national and international systems established within the context of government to government or government to international institution interactions (GFDRR Labs, 2010). This issue, however, is less about the engineering/hacker mentality among V&TC members (as many of the members also have experience in humanitarian aid), and more addressing the often inaccurate perception of what type of person a V&TC represents.

Governments and formal organizations in the past have also struggled in partnering with certain V&TCs (especially if the V&TC requires funding) due to a loosely defined internal structure or lack of an officially established organization. Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery Labs (GFDRR Labs) at the World Bank describes the difficulty of funding open development groups with loosely defined structures, as GFDRR Labs can only provide projects with resources through a formal, internationally competitive process (S. Gill, personal communication, July 20, 2011). In short, there is no easy way to push money to [those]

organizations that do not formally exist [on paper] (S. Gill, personal communication, July 20, 2011).

Another issue to consider is the increased potential for security threats and liability issues if a given V&TC does not plan for the distant future. The V&TC movement is largely based on open source software and cloud-computing, which aim to harness the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process (Open Source Initiative, n.d.). The open source nature of this data means that, if a V&TC does not prioritize security and data verification, the projects and data could be accessible to terrorists, corrupt leaders seeking to shut-down or punish activists, and individuals lacking the knowledge and skill necessary to organize disaster relief efforts (K. Morris, personal communication, June 3, 2011). Data, such as volunteered geographic information (VGI), generates specific concerns regarding abuse as it is user-generated content, with very little moderation or control by the sites owners and very little restriction on the nature of content. In some cases users [can] even edit the content created by others (Goodchild, 2007). However, many groups have demonstrated strategies that can be used to reduce the possibility of encountering unforeseen vulnerabilities and security threats (Chameles, 2011), such as through the development of a new Ushahidi instance that specifically addresses vulnerabilities or by gathering all volunteers after a crisis to discuss lessons learned (K. Morris, personal communication, August 21, 2011). Furthermore, a recent report conducted by Yahoo researchers shows that, during the earthquake in Chile, 95.5% of tweets related to confirmed-truths validate the information. Yet in the case of a false-rumor, 50% of related tweets will deny that information (much of the remaining population will tweet related questions)(Mendoza, Poblete,

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Castillo, 2011). This study demonstrates the often undermined power of a community to correct itself.

Sharing data amongst V&TCs and other open source initiatives has raised the possibility of licensing issues. For example, an application may scrape data from multiple websites and display the data within the context of its own site. If the sources all have licenses for redistribution or commercial purposes, the user must ensure that he abides by the rules of each license or face legal penalties. This could be seen with Googles missing persons data2, which could include user-specified dates for when their data should be destroyed. Developers could pull data into their applications using the Person Finder API, but could easily violate the contract if they did not remove the data from their application by the specified date (M. Prutsalis, personal communication, July 18, 2011).

Some groups within the V&TC community have also experienced internal challenges. One instance of this was described in the 2011 Disaster Relief 2.0 report, Communities that need each others strengths are being forced to compete for money in the donor pool, and some are finding the need to compete in areas of overlap or are being asked to tackle issues where other V&TCs are already working (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, 2011, p. 51). Individuals within the community have also begun to differentiate between paid versus unpaid workers, praising volunteers for their altruistic efforts, implicitly suggesting that paid volunteers are less selfless and less valuable within the community. These relationships are at times detrimental to the

Visit http://code.google.com/p/googlepersonfinder for more information about Googles missing persons data or http://code.google.com/p/googlepersonfinder/wiki/DataAPI for the applications API.

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overall effort and must be controlled in order to sustain a benevolent partnership amongst and within divergent entities.

Strategizing Future Relationships Among V&TCs

John Hagel III and John Seely Brown (2006) accurately describe the V&TC movement: Individuals and organizations come together and collaborate in evolving networks of creation. They play off each other, appropriating each others work, learning from it, building on top of it, and then watching and learning from what others do with their own creations. They often work in parallel and then fight and learn from each other when the time comes to try to integrate their work into a broader offering. (p. 10)

This has led some leaders within humanitarian organizations and V&TCs to suggest coordinating efforts among the many different groups in order to mitigate the current problems within the field (Crowley, 2011)(Verity, 2011). Others, however, see competition as a positive force and are comfortable with the present situation. Therefore, the remainder of this paper will seek to answer the question: what coordinated step should Volunteer and Technical Communities take in order to reduce the effects of or eliminate the issues currently experienced during technical disaster preparedness, response, and relief?

Proposed Alternatives
Alternative 1: Establish a Set of Protocols and Standards
Many V&TCs were founded within the last few years and are relatively new entities in the world of international humanitarian response, although they represent a set of skills much needed in disaster relief (refer to Appendix A). In order to partner with and gain the respect of governments

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and established humanitarian organizations, V&TCs at the 2010 International Crisis Mappers conference discussed an API for the UN with the core notion being that the UN should partner with the V&TCs to establish a common set of protocols to connect their people, workflows, and data flows. (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, 2011, p.44). The discussion should be mediated by a neutral party. The discussion should include pertinent groups such as the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) at the World Bank and the Red Cross as well as all known V&TCs.

Among the goals of such an effort will be to establish standard accountability controls to ensure compliance with a large range of international agreements and internal processes and policies (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, 2011, p. 41). Such protocols will also establish a means to deal with the accidental release of data that would put vulnerable populations at risk as well as protocols to address licensing discrepancies and to establish a baseline of trust among organizations. Some V&TCs do have methods for dealing with these issues, especially those that work in human rights (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, 2011, p. 41).

As David Aylward explains in the Disaster Relief 2.0 report, the end product of this effort will be agreed upon V&TC architectures, standards, and protocols:

It [should be] possible to say to organizations when they arrive, you are not playing unless you are playing according to this architecture, standards, and protocols. Use any software you want, as long as it conforms to these standards. The UN could use its bully pulpit role to enforce that. Otherwise you get the same wonderful people who do the best

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they can with the electronic equivalent of duct tape. Its absurd to keep doing it over and over. (as cited in Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, 2011, p. 42)

Alternative 2: Establish a V&TC Coordination Board

John Hagel and John Seely Brown (2006) describe a global practice network which connects participants with similar sensibilities and practices through a centralized practice orchestrator who defines a system for participation within the network and for integrated activity (p. 9). The practice orchestrators can successfully play a less active role in terms of recruitment and management of specific creation initiatives because participants share similar mentalities and practices (Hagel & Brown, 2006, p. 8).

Therefore, this alternative suggests V&TCs should focus their efforts on forming a global practice network in the form of a coordination board rather than developing standardized systems and protocols without the establishment of a higher level entity. This board would be nominated by members of V&TCs based on skill, reputation, and ability to lead and would consist of unbiased individuals (who are not associated with any particular V&TC). Assembling members who have a deep and diverse knowledge of the crisis community, but are not volunteering all of their time to V&TCs, will assist in ensuring that the board members have time to convene when necessary. The individual members would not be paid and would only convene when a defined proportion of V&TCs within the community solicits their attention.

The board would be approached with problem statements by the V&TCs and their humanitarian or government partners and would work, with feedback from the V&TC community, to define systematic workflows that V&TCs could then be encouraged to adopt. An example of one of the

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boards primary foci will be to implement strategies to support risk reduction and prevention among V&TCs during static periods as a more effective way to save lives when crises do strike (GFDRR Labs, 2010). The board would leave the establishment of specific protocols and standards to individual V&TCs.

Alternative 3: Develop a Presence in Academia

The V&TC effort is in need of a neutral venue where problems faced both by the international humanitarian relief communities and the V&TCs can be discussed by individuals with different belief structures without fear of harsh confrontation (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, 2011, p. 55). Schools and academia are recognized by those involved in development work as a means to bypass the complications that arise through politics (Boehmer, Smith, Schoppa, 2010) and students have historically made major contributions to V&TC efforts (such as those at Tufts Fletcher School who ran Ushahidi-Haiti). By involving academia more prominently in the V&TCs development and deployment efforts, a iterative process of design, development, evaluation of successes and failures, and redesign may be supported.

Furthermore, academia will both serve as a form of advertisement and a means to provide V&TCs with a dedicated source of trusted labor. Students will be mentored by experienced faculty within related departments and will work together on teams. Students from many different academic, ethnic, economic, and racial backgrounds should also be encouraged in this endeavor in order to continue and further V&TCs diverse support. This will be achieved in part by emphasizing the international aspects of projects (which will attract students who speak other languages or have experience living in other countries). This will also be achieved by forming partnerships not only with universities in the United States, but also in at-risk locations such as

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Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This model has already been adopted by the crisis mapping NGO, Ushahidi, through their Universities for Ushahidi program (see http://u4u.ushahidi.com/ for more information) (Himelfarb, 2011). This example will serve as a preliminary case study on which other V&TCs can develop their future academic partnerships.

Alternative 4: Continue Developing Separately with Informal Interactions

The possibility remains that V&TCs may not need to embark on a coordinated effort to reform their developing disaster response and relief strategies. Some experts argue that the ability to provide reliable information depends upon motivated citizens, the accessibility and usability of data collection tools and techniques, and the infrastructures used to store, validate, and share contributed data (Elwood, 2008). Appendix A demonstrates how each V&TC is designing an internal system that best suits its needs given its specific mission and is forming a competitive architecture that can accelerate capability building (Hagel & Brown, 2006, p. 13), within the V&TC community as a whole. While some endeavors will experience success, others will fail in their attempts due to the natural competition among competitors engaged in similar pursuits. This form of natural selection among V&TCs will eliminate the need to establish protocols, invest in academia, or devise a coordination board as systems ill-designed to handle liability, trust, and other issues will become obsolete.

Criteria
The four stated alternatives will be evaluated based on the follow set of criteria: efficacy, cost, time, and political feasibility.

Efficacy refers to the ability of each alternative to bring about significant and desired change within V&TCs, among multiple V&TCs, and within the disaster response community as a whole.

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Cost refers to the monetary cost of the endeavor, which is a necessary consideration given the non-profit or completely volunteer status of the organizations. The time required to complete the task demands attention given the limited time that volunteers are able to dedicate. Political feasibility will assess the likelihood that V&TCs and humanitarian organizations adopt the alternative given the potential existing positions and tensions within the community. This criterion will also take into account the possibility of local, federal, and state governments to support the action and involving the outcomes of the endeavor in relief efforts.

Analysis
The four alternatives are compared in Table 1 below by their ability to address the problem statements discussed earlier in this paper. This highlights the potential successes and inadequacies of each of the four alternatives.

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V&TCs need to:

Alternative 1: Establish a Set of Protocols and Standards

Alternative 2: Establish a V&TC Coordination Board

Maybe Would have the potential to promote best workflows for incorporating a large, diverse user base or for preparing puppet scripts and then customizing for deployment Maybe May devise successful systems that cause V&TCs to gain recognition from potential volunteers

Alternative 3: Develop a Presence in Academia

Alternative 4: Continue Developing Separately with Informal Interactions

Address different communities and contexts

No This would still be the responsibility of V&TC project teams

Yes Will include participants from a range of backgrounds and will promote disaster preparedness in many regions

Maybe V&TCs may devise their own strategies for this

Attract volunteers during static periods

Maybe Protocols will lead to a higher level of professionalism, which may lead to publicity, which would attract static period volunteerism Yes Protocols will require V&TCs to collect after-action data Yes Protocols will help to professionalize V&TCs, which will better allow them to interact with groups such as UN OCHA or the Red Cross. This will lead to better publicity. Yes At least to some extent, protocols ensure a level of V&TC responsibility

Yes Student and professors will work during static times

Maybe V&TCs may devise their own strategies for this

Gather afteraction data

Yes Will devise a postcrisis data collection workflow

Yes A system for postdisaster data collection can be devised or students can be enlisted to collect data on the ground

Maybe V&TCs may devise their own strategies for this

Raise awareness of V&TCs/projects

Maybe If devised systems are adopted, may lead to greater success and therefore publicity.

Yes Would become a campaign across many universities

Maybe V&TCs will experience varying levels of publicity based on their marketing and success

Cultivate trust of volunteers and V&TCs

Maybe If V&TCs adopt the workflows and they are successful, may lead to more trust

No May lead to a lack of trust by victims/organizations on a design level, but students may be trusted more easily on an ethical level

Maybe V&TCs may begin to gain trust naturally as the groups mature

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Improve coordination with established organizations

Yes Can create protocols such as the requirements to become an official V&TC. This may later be used to apply for funding. Yes Specific protocols should be established for each generalized category of V&TC (exp. hackathon-based, crowdsourced mapbased)

Maybe If V&TCs adopt the standardized systems, other organizations will be familiar with certain aspects of all V&TCs before beginning a project

No Does not address this issue

Maybe V&TCs may devise their own strategies for this

Address the possibility of liability issues

No Liability strategies will be determined by individual V&TCs.

No Does not address this issue, although universities may be used as a forum for discussion

Maybe V&TCs may devise their own strategies for this

Address the possibility of security threats

Yes Specific protocols should be established for each generalized category of V&TC

Maybe The Board will not address how groups should handle security breaches, but may recommend systems that protect against security threats (exp. web scripts that filter out bad data such as spam or verification teams) No This will be handled by individual V&TCs

No Does not address this issue, although universities may be used as a forum for discussion

Maybe V&TCs may devise their own strategies for this

Address the possibility of licensing issues

Yes For example, a protocol may require data providers to clearly show users when the data must be deleted

No Does not address this issue, although universities may be used as a forum for discussion No It is more likely that spreading V&TCs efforts among many different universities will increase project overlap (this may be helpful though projects can be designed specifically for an area and population)

Maybe V&TCs may devise their own strategies for this

Reduce the instances of project overlap

Maybe Could simulate better coordination and communication among V&TCs

No Because the board can only suggest workflows, unlikely that it will significantly impact possible project overlap

Maybe Certain V&TCs may establish a reputation for specific tasks as they mature, thereby reducing overlap

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Create a sense of equity between volunteers and professionals

Yes Standardize use of V&TC to include both volunteers and professionals

No Will not be able to have much impact on intra-V&TC relationships

No Does not address this issue

Maybe V&TCs may devise their own strategies for this

Table 1: Ability of Alternatives to Address V&TCs' Challenges.

The results from Table 1 indicate the first alternatives success in addressing a majority of the problems many V&TCs are facing, especially relative to the other three alternatives outcomes. Using the information from Table 1, each of the four alternatives is evaluated by the proposed criteria. The results of this comparison are shown in Table 2 and explained below.

Efficacy
Alternative 1: Establish a Set of Protocols and Standards Alternative 2: Establish a V&TC Coordination Board Alternative 3: Develop a Presence in Academia Alternative 4: Continue Developing Separately with Informal Interactions

Cost

Time

Political Feasibility
3

Total Score

10

Table 2: Evaluation Matrix. The proposed alternatives are evaluated on a scale of 1 to 3. A score of 3, in this analysis, represents an effective, inexpensive, and politically feasible option with minimal time requirements. The rationale for these ratings is described below.

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Alternative 1 would be extremely effective due to the large span of protocols that could be implemented. Although this alternative does not immediately address the lack of volunteers during static periods, protocols could be established to demand the collection of after-action data. By establishing protocols, the V&TCs would be more easily able to collaborate with existing humanitarian organizations and governments and therefore would gain recognition and trust from disaster-stricken communities. Similarly, determining how similar organizations should deal with difficult issues such as liability, licensing, and security (such as through the use of a disclaimer notice or a data filtering script) would set a standard on which V&TCs could collaborate and build. Clear, official protocols would also aid with intra-V&TC problems through mandates such as making the term V&TC official rather than VTC, as V&TC highlights the participation of both volunteers and professionals in the movement. Furthermore, the protocols would be made publicly available in keeping with the open source nature of V&TCs. Though the protocols may require more than a year to discuss and establish throughout the network of V&TCs it would be politically feasible as few groups are opposed to the establishment of protocols within the network (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, 2011, p. 44). The primary costs of the endeavor would be paying for travel and the coordination of meetings, but that cost may be covered by a significant grant or several individual grants to V&TCs. If the UN becomes involved in the endeavor, it may also shoulder certain aspects of the financial burden.

The second alternative has the capacity to produce similar results to the first alternative, as the board would be able to establish some standards with the added ability to develop standardized systems (ie, designs for disaster preparedness programs) that V&TCs would be encouraged to

21

implement. These systems would provide a baseline from which V&TCs would build. However, there are several concerns that must be considered. The first is the political feasibility of this alternative given the many different personalities and opinions involved in the V&TC movement. It is likely that the groups may have a difficult time selecting individuals to serve of the board without contentious, which could lead to a complex set of political boundaries among V&TCs. This would restrict collaboration amongst the groups, damage the open source nature of the groups, and possibly lead to the boards rejection within certain crowds. In order to ensure that this does not occur, a significant amount of time must be allotted for discussion and debate among relevant organizations, from FEMA to the Red Cross to CrisisCommons. The fact that membership on the board is an honorary, versus professional, position increases the likelihood that those involved would not be able to prioritize their positions when in conflict with their professional schedules. This would delay efforts and render the board less effective, as organizations often need to quickly decide on internal structures and policies especially during a crisis. The boards determinations would therefore be recommended rather than mandatory and would mainly be adopted during static periods. The alternative would also be critiqued by V&TCs who would view the board as an added layer of bureaucracy in a system that is intentionally designed to function from a grassroots level.

Investing in an advertising campaign within academia and coordinating the development of student groups and research projects in support of V&TCs would engage a reliable and large group of diverse volunteers before, during, and after a crisis. The diversity of the group, in terms of academic, economic, and cultural backgrounds, would help to facilitate discussions of how to best design projects for similarly diverse user populations. V&TCs will establish a level of trust

22

with student groups as they work with the groups to discuss problems and possible project designs. The involvement of student groups, however, could lead to a weakened trust of V&TCs application designs by major organizations, as it is unclear what skill level a given student represents. Allotting tasks to students may save organizations valuable time, yet it will also demand time and patience as V&TC mentors answer questions and review students efforts (M. Prutsalis, personal communication, July 17, 2011). Although the advertising campaign within universities may be costly if groups decide to invest in marking strategies such as online advertisements or publicity events at Universities, the option is one of the most politically feasible. It only requires a loose coordination among V&TCs in order to increase the efficacy of the effort, and would be welcomed by students and universities seeking to get involved in the nascent and exciting field. Furthermore, academia provides a safe space where those with different belief structures around [their] work can safely raise issues and explore alternative mindsets. [The academic forum is] open to everyone from donors and beneficiaries to technologists at operational organizations and the agencies that contract with them (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, 2011, p. 55). This politically neutral forum would also make feasible future, potentially contentious, discussions and changes within the community.

The final alternative, which suggests no changes to the current system, would produce no additional costs or volunteered time. It is also likely that, even if V&TCs do not take action to coordinate their efforts more closely, innovation within organizations will solve some of the problems that the community currently faces, such as developing a plug-in to be used in all platforms for after-action data collection. Yet, the current networks are advised against continuing without further coordination of interactions. V&TCs were formed in times of rapid

23

change such as during the Indian Ocean Earthquake (Sahana Software Foundation) or postelection violence in Kenya (Ushahidi). While this caused V&TCs to adopt a bootstrapping mindset and potentially act as catalysts to re-shape and re-focus institutions, knowledge sharing and shared understanding become even more effective when participants come together on a regular basis to undertake new collaborative creation efforts (Hagel & Brown, 2006, p. 11). Therefore, separate development might be possible, but it is not recommended.

Recommendations and Conclusion

Leaders from within humanitarian organizations, governmental agencies, and V&TCs agree that coordinating efforts among the many different players is critical to resolving problems surrounding current disaster relief efforts (Crowley, 2011). The quantitative results from the evaluation matrix and supporting rationale show that the best coordination alternative to pursue (among those proposed) is Alternative 1: Establishing a Set of Protocols and Standards. This will help organizations to systematically deal with difficult issues such as liability and licensing, while leaving strategic operations (such as recruiting and retaining volunteers during static periods) to the individuals groups. This will allow natural competition among organizations to ensue, while establishing a standard level of trust to allow the routine incorporation of V&TC efforts within the larger framework of governmental and humanitarian relief.

Volunteer and Technical Communities should begin establishing protocols and developing internal systems by studying reports from the open source, education, healthcare, and other relevant communities (S. Gill, personal communication, July 20, 2011). Through this lateral learning, the leaders of technology-driven crisis response will understand what processes and methodologies succeeded and failed in the field and why. Stuart Gill, leader of the new GFDRR

24

Labs initiative at the World Bank, explains that people are benefitting from well-designed systems that Volunteer and Technical Communities have never heard about because of the small scale of the successful ventures; yet I know for a fact it would be of value to these communities to understand [how and] why the systems are successful (personal communication, July 20, 2011).

Additionally, it is critical that groups work to collect data on projects that have been deployed so as to understand the successes and failures of the applications. Nigel McNie (2011), a programmer for CrisisCommons, Crisis Mappers, and the SBTF, says it is crucial that V&TCs make a point of returning to the location post-crisis and asking the community questions like, Did you see the map?, Was it useful?, Was it easy to use?, Were your needs met?, and What could we do to improve the service? This should be done by sending volunteers back to the location after the disaster has hit to gather first-hand data on how the applications were used. It would also be beneficial for V&TCs to use a plug-in that can be deployed through applications on any platform. The plug-in will ask questions such as Was this app useful? How? and will only record personal information if the user gives permission. This will provide V&TCs with a standardized means to collect data on the effectiveness of their projects. This information should then be filtered into an open source repository where V&TCs can observe what applications exist and how they can be improved based upon user feedback.

By discussing and establishing protocols and standards, conducting post-crisis surveys with application users, and developing a standard plug-in for after-action data collection, the newly established creation net of groups like Geeks Without Bounds, the Standby Task Force, and

25

CrisisCommons will revolutionize data collection and communication during disasters and crises.

26

Appendix A: V&TC Profiles Geeks Without Bounds (GWOB)

Style: Hackathons

I.

Stated Mission Geeks Without Bounds was founded in 2010 as a not-for-profit alliance of hackers, coders and geeks united by the common goal of assisting communities in distress. [GWOB members] actively organize and help promote coding/hacking events to facilitate the building of tools and systems meant to alleviate many of the technical problems encountered during emergency and disaster situations (GWOB, n.d.). Current Organizational Structure Geeks Without Bounds centers around the concept of a hackathon, an event where software developers and technical experts gather to program and create applications with little restrictive overhead. During GWOBs weekend hackathons, which occur throughout the year, humanitarian response officials (sometimes from the government) approach the group with problem definitions which technical volunteers work to address during the hackathon by building applications and other tools (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011). The volunteers are sometimes rewarded with prizes, introducing a level of competition and therefore motivation. GWOB was founded less than a year ago, and therefore is still working to define an internal structure (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011). At this point, however, the group functions under a two tiered management structure, as shown in Figure 1 below. On the top most level are the group coordinators currently a small team of three individuals with significant coding and software development experience. The two founders, Johnny Diggz and Willow Brugh, are working to hire a Project Coordinator as a fourth core team member. The core management team aims to effectively coordinate among the many different projects that form during Geeks Without Boundss hackathons. a. Project Management The group currently uses Atrium, a task management system offered through School Factory, Inc., to organize projects (see http://atrium.schoolfactory.org/gwoborg/). The service allows members to list tasks to be completed and then maintain an open dashboard where the current state of the task is updated and discussed. The Atrium site also includes tabs that display tweets from members Twitter accounts, a calendar with upcoming events, a list of members who have registered within the service, and a GWOB blog. The projects are encouraged to be open source, yet teams are ultimately the owners of their developments and sometimes form businesses around their technologies. For this reason, documentation is often disparate (a reason why the group has begun using Atrium). GWOB does offer hosting

II.

27

Figure 2: Internal structure of GWOB. While the core management team is a completely represented by the top tier, the number of projects (point of contact(s) or POC(s) and volunteers) is greater than what is pictured and expanding with each GWOB sponsored hackathon. The green coloring of the Project POC(s) and Project Volunteers indicates that some projects branch off from the GWOB structure and form their own, independent businesses (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011).

services to developers, but many also choose to host their own applications (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011). Program Director Willow Brugh is responsible for tracking projects based on contacts made during GWOB hackathons. She ensures that projects volunteers continue to make progress after leaving the hackathon, have the structure and resources they need to continue, have opportunities to publicize their work, and that they are able to pass their projects to other volunteers if necessary (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011). She also encourages project volunteers to bring their work to future hackathons to continue working on them. Eventually, GWOB aims to establish an online tool box where GWOB coordinators, who are aware of where different tools related to V&TC efforts are located, publish that knowledge to the internet and encourage individuals to keep current tools updated and to build ones where none exist (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011).

28

b. Volunteer Management Currently, if volunteers dont already have some self-drive, [GWOB] doesnt work well (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011). This stems from the groups basis within the hacker community, which typically expect[s] volunteers to just catch on (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011), in this case, to the organizational and technical aspects of the V&TC effort. GWOB recognizes the importance of designing a framework within which novice volunteers can adapt and grow. The current leadership expects the future Project Coordinator (in conjunction with the Program Director and volunteers) to develop this aspect of the GWOB infrastructure. Coordination with other V&TCs is also expected to be helpful as it clarifies where to send people with certain skill sets [in order to put them to] fuller use and [make them] feel better about their experience (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011). GWOB aims to stay in contact with project teams both to ensure that the team has the necessary resources and continues to make progress. This process also helps to establish trust between the coordinators and volunteers. By understanding the different personalities and skill levels within the groups, the team as a whole benefits. As Willow Brugh explains, I see that there are two kinds of trustworthiness: one where you always tell the truth, and the other where you can keep a secret. Both are necessary in different contexts (personal communication, July 6, 2011). III. Project Deployment When disasters strike, GWOB examines which projects are fully developed and available for use. If the application is relevant, the GWOB coordinators call the individual project directors and ask to use the tool. Once GWOB has the groups permission, it then asks the developers to teach others how to use and support the tool. Geeks Without Bounds has not specified how they would deal with liability issues resulting from a user being harmed through the use of a GWOB developed application. The possibility of this occurring is seen as negligible because when people working within the context of a disaster are given tools, they will know what is appropriate, because they're in it (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011). As Program Director Willow Brugh states, I'm willing to take the liability of potentially harming someone if it also potentially saves a lot of people. So, I guess the answer [to how will GWOB deal with liability issues?] is we'll figure that out if it ever happens (personal communication, July 6, 2011). GWOBs primary strategy is, therefore, proactive. GWOB asks hackers to attempt to break the apps that are built and to manipulate the tool for misuse and corruption (an idea familiar to military and hacker communities, but new to humanitarians) (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011). This allows GWOB to understand not only how to prevent these situations from occurring, but also how to damage the people trying to use it for evil in the process (W. Brugh, personal communication, July 6, 2011).

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Standby Task Force (SBTF)

Style: Volunteer Network

I.

Stated Mission The Standby Task Force was created in response to the need for crisis responders to have a trained and professionalized volunteer force [that could] be on standby and activated within hours (Meier, 2010).The SBTF is therefore different from many V&TCs as its primary focus is not to conceive and develop ideas for disaster technologies, but rather to provide humanitarian organizations [working in crisis affected communities] with real-time Crisis Mapping support (Standby Task Force, n.d.). In order to achieve this end, the groups core team works to increase the ability and skills of SBTF volunteers and the sustainability of the effort through a continuous dialogue and coordination with other tech and crisis mapping endeavors (Standby Task Force, n.d.). The core management of the Standby Task Force aims to eventually become superfluous [in order to] fulfill the goal of the SBTF: creat[e] a space of empowerment where people learn how to work together and can do it independent of the core team (Ayala, 2011). The team has made significant progress towards this end, as evidenced by the creation of the Sudan and Mumbai crisis maps by volunteers of their own volition (Kirk Morris, personal communication, August 21, 2011). Current Organizational Structure The SBTF was launched in 2010 at the International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM 2010) after being proposed by Patrick Meier, Director of Crisis Mapping at Ushahidi and co-founder of the International Network of Crisis Mappers (Meier, 2010). The Force, which is not an organization, works to streamline the informal distributed network of volunteers through an interface for crisis mapping based on lessons learned during prior disasters, such as Haiti, Chile and Pakistan (Standby Task Force, n.d.). While the SBTF was originally divided into three teams, the SBTF currently consists of ten teams: the Geo-Location Team, Humanitarian Team, Report Team, Media Monitoring Team, SMS Team, Task Team, Tech Team, Translation Team, Verification Team, and Analysis Team. Each of the ten teams is managed by several team coordinators who also act as the point of contact for the team.

II.

30

Figure 3: Internal structure of the Standby Task Force. Each team is a self-sustaining entity with volunteers selected by the Volunteer Coordinators. All teams work together during a crisis, performing well-defined tasks (Standby Task Force, n.d.).

31

Like many V&TCs, the SBTF is open source endeavor. It uses open source platforms such as Ushahidi, OpenStreetMap, and Frontline SMS, and sends electronic invitations to join the SBTF to any individual wishing to become a part of the effort (K. Morris, personal communication, August 21, 2011). This invitation contains instructions for filling out a member profile, joining a team, and signing up to the SBTF Google Group (K. Morris, personal communication, August 21, 2011). This process ensures a higher level of trust between volunteers as they work together during static times and also among the highly organized and structured organizations like the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) (Meier, 2010). a. Project Management The Task Force is able to prepare for disasters by maintaining a customized instance of a Ushahidi map during static periods (K. Morris, personal communication, June 3, 2011). The SBTF also customizes the Ushahidi platform based on the lessons learned from previous deployments and puppet scripts are written, debugged, and then hosted on the popular, online, open source code repository, Github, in order to quickly deploy Ushahidi instances during crises (K. Morris, personal communication, June 3, 2011). This ensures that, when a disaster occurs, most structural work has already been completed. The SBTF will not deploy any volunteer teams until a relevant authority solicits their help (such as UN OCHA during the political crisis in Libya)( K. Morris, personal communication, June 3, 2011). This allows the partner to make requests so that data is tailored to the specific needs of the community (K. Morris, personal communication, August 21, 2011), while it also legitimizes the Task Forces work and supports a high level of trust. When the SBTF does become involved, they use GitHub in order to support code sharing amongst the many different SBTF members and their partners (K. Morris, personal communication, June 3, 2011). b. Volunteer Management The SBTF uses a customized group website in order to organize and coordinate amongst the ten different project groups. Each team creates a workflow for new volunteers in order to quickly establish an understanding of their responsibilities within the context of the group. An example of a workflow representing the organization of the Task Force can be seen in Figure 3 below.

32

Figure 4: SBTF Workflow. (Standby Task Force, n.d.b).

The teams provide a variety of training materials to new members, often in the form of PowerPoint slides. However, training is also available through online webinars hosted via the AnyMeeting web conferencing service. The webinars allow a more senior member of the team to educate a large number of people on topics such as how to use OpenStreetMap or the ethical protocols of disaster mapping (Morris, 2011). III. Project Deployment Once an authority requests the SBTFs aid, the teams deploy a Ushahidi instance and begin monitoring and mapping media in the form of YouTube videos, Twitter feeds, SMS messages, blog posts, live UStream channels, etc. The issue of whether or not a piece of data is a rumor or true has arisen during several occasions. However, the Verification Team (one of the ten subdivisions of the SBTF) has been successful using forensic evidence from the message or video in order to determine its validity (K. Morris, personal communication, June 3, 2011). However, the group is also able to rely on the senders histories and the reactions of neighboring individuals on the ground in order to determine the validity of the data. A recent study by a research team at Yahoo showed that 95% of tweets related to confirmed reports validated that information while a miniscule 0.03% of tweets denied the validity of these true cases (see Table 3 below). Yet, when false information is tweeted, the results show that the percentage of tweets denying the information increases to about 50% (Mendoza, Poblete, Castillo, 2011). This conclusion suggests that data verification may be possible through the aggregate analysis of tweets (Meier, 2011).

33

Table 3: Classification results for cases studied of confirmed truths and false rumors. (Mendoza, Poblete, Castillo, 2011).

The Standby Task Force also utilizes the concept of a handle in order to map data. This means that, instead of asking individuals to tweet information whenever they deem necessary, the SBTF asks groups to periodically report information to be mapped this enables a higher level of trust for both the volunteers and the community (Morris, 2011). During the course of the project, the group rotates among volunteers to prevent against physical, mental, and emotional fatigue (Morris, 2011). This is made possible by the fact that there are about 600 volunteers for the SBTF who reside in about sixty countries (Morris, 2011). Projects also aim to return control of the project to local authorities after the course of about ten days (Morris, 2011).

34

Figure 5: SBTF Webinar Interface. This online conferencing service was used to train volunteers from across the globe on the SBTF's geolocation tools. A PowerPoint presentation appeared on the Screen Share tab later in the session (Morris, 2011).

35

CrisisCommons
Style: Bar Camp

I.

Stated Mission CrisisCommons is currently working to become a primary resource in linking the disparate elements of a disconnected bureaucracy of crisis response organizations (CROs), V&TCs, and interested individuals (A. Turner, personal communication, June 8, 2011). CrisisCommons is a grassroots movement that provides tools to supports aid workers on the ground, hosts CrisisCamps where tools are produced , and maintains and supports a network of volunteers to provide tools and respond to crises (Lurie, 2010). During CrisisCamps a global network of volunteers, developers, and professionals collaborate to build open source tools to support aid workers (CrisisCommons, n.d.). More specifically, CrisisCommons seeks to: 1. Empower Communities Encouraging CrisisCamps 2. Become a Partnership Broker proactively engaging crisis actors to facilitate technology challenges during crisis; citizen advocate 3. Share Technology Tools Building the Sourceforge of Crisis Response OSS 4. Innovate Crisis Tools of Tomorrow - Hackathon 5. Create Cross Response Collaboration International aid & domestic response (closing the gap) 6. Respond to Crises Development of the CrisisCommons Action Team (both virtual and physical) 7. Cultivate World Sensors Empowering independent reporting & aggregation during crisis 8. Build Global Citizen Action - Empowering digital literacy to save lives 9. Advocate for Access Empowering global access to and freedom of expression (CrisisCommons Charter, n.d.)

II.

Current Organizational Structure The idea of a CrisisCamp was founded in March 2009 as a barcamp event intended to connect crisis management and global development practitioners to the technology volunteer community (CrisisCommons, n.d.). During the crisis in Haiti, CrisisCamp events became an official movement; CrisisCommons has since worked with over 3,000 people worldwide in over 30 cities across 10 countries including France, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Chile and Colombia (CrisisCommons, n.d.). CrisisCommons is working to define their governance structure. Presently however, a core management team oversees the marketing, technical development, and general coordination of CrisisCommons. Each CrisisCamp is its own entity and often has a group leader who is the point of contact (POC) for the project (although volunteerss and POCs contact information is not routinely collected)(CrisisCommons, 2010, pp. 7-9). Some CrisisCamps,

36

such as CrisisCampLdn, have clearly defined structures and protocols for organizing volunteers during crises and have begun to branch off from CrisisCommons in an effort to clearly define their mission and structure (London Governance Discussion, n.d.). Others are more ad hoc and depend on the CrisisCommons core team for governance and coordination with other CrisisCamp teams.

Figure 6: CrisisCommons Structure. A core team within CrisisCommons oversees the efforts of individual CrisisCamps (these individuals are not all listed in this figure). While most of the Camps are self-driven, some specific Camps, such as CrisisCampLdn, are gaining independence as they work to define their own structures and protocols. The loose connections between independent CrisisCamps and CrisisCommons are highlighted by the broken lines on the left of the figure and the green color of the boxes.

a. Project Management CrisisCommons is primarily organized through the use of a wiki and blog where members post ideas regarding individual applications, governance structures, afteraction reports, and general information useful to the CrisisCommons community and other V&TCs. While the organization hosts these pages internally, it also offers ad hoc hosting services to developers working through individual CrisisCamps during disasters (A. Turner, personal communication, June 8, 2011). This causes an increased demand for server space and bandwidth during disasters and a lapse during static periods. In order to address this issue and to offer effective support services, CrisisCommons plans to coordinate their efforts through Oregon State University OpenSource Lab (OSL) (Infrastructure/Plan, 2011). OSLs responsibilities will include providing core services for running CrisisCommons during static times (ie, supporting the wiki); defining the environment, process, criteria, and lifecycle for supporting new development; and defining the environment, process, criteria, and lifecycle for launching and supporting new sites (Infrastructure/Plan, 2011). CrisisCommons is also reorganizing their use of collaboration tools (ie, Skype), content management tools, and project management tools (ie, Basecamp) (Infrastructure/Plan, 2011). One of the primary concerns with the use of

37

organizational and collaborative tools is the monthly or yearly expenses associated with the services.
The CrisisCommons Infrastructure Working Group (CCIWG) has been tasked with developing a code-of-conduct, developing a 6 month CCIWG plan, updating the CCIWG 2year roadmap that exists, gardening the wiki, collecting and filing documents, collecting and filing files, improving rapid-fire/on-demand workflow management for disaster tasks, and developing podcasts for new members to the CCIWG.

b. Volunteer Management CrisisCommons is unique within the V&TC network as it has managed to attract people with backgrounds in technology as well as individuals with nontechnical expertise, such as marketing (M. Prutsalis, personal communication, July 17, 2011). This unique feature is expressed on the CrisisCommons homepage: CrisisCampers are not only technical folks like coders, programmers, geospatial and visualization ninjas but we are also filled to the brim with super creative and smart folks who can lead teams, manage projects, share information, search the internet, translate languages, know usability, can write a research paper and can help us edit wikis (CrisisCommons, n.d.). In order to better coordinate the efforts of volunteers, the CrisisCommons Infrastructure Working Group (CCIWG) is searching for people willing to volunteer their time on an ongoing basis in exchange for an opportunity to use their technology specific skills, work on problems important to the CrisisCommons community, and provide input to the future direction of the CCIWG (Infrastructure/Plan, 2011). The CCIWG also aims to create both an Opportunity Model and Operational Model that volunteers can use to find incomplete projects requiring attention and understand procedural standards for developing projects (Infrastructure/Plan, 2011). CrisisCommons is also planning to go on tour during September 2011 (National Preparedness Month ) by literally driving around the country in a tour bus in order to raise awareness, educate and connect people about how technology especially the Internet can enhance disaster preparedness and response (CrisisCommons, n.d.). The tour bus will drive from the USAs east coast to the west coast, inviting individuals from local communities to ride on the bus for any given distance, hacking with members or CrisisCommons and CrisisCamps along the way (CrisisCommons, n.d.). The goals of this journey are to support and train local emergency managers, public health officials, and community organizers. host an open data scavenger hunt. learn from the crisis experts. learn from the tech community. and raise $1M of volunteer time (CrisisCommons, n.d.). III. Project Deployment
When a disaster hits, individual CrisisCamps (such as CrisisCampNZ or CrisisCampLdn) form or reconvene, thereby joining the efforts of volunteers not necessarily near the location of the disaster. While the camps work to solve the technical problems that are brought to their attention, CrisisCommons provides a forum where they can post and discuss critical data, such as existing projects, contact information, application code, training materials, or relevant hashtags.

38 After the disaster, the Commons is also used to post after-action reports, or reflections from team members on what strategies were successful and which strategies are in need of revision. CrisisCommons is one of the few V&TCs that has prioritized the collection of reflection material on past deployments.

39

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Goodchild, M. (2007). Citizens as sensors: The world of volunteered geography. GeoJournal, 67, 211-221. GWOB. (n.d.). About: Who we are. Retrieved from http://gwob.org/about Hagel, J., Brown, J.S. (2006). Creation Nets: Harnessing the Potential of Open Innovation. Retrieved from http://www.johnhagel.com/creationnets.pdf HaitiVoiceNeeds. (2010, February 13). Retrieved July 17, 2011, from http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/HaitiVoiceNeeds Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Disaster Relief 2.0: The Future of Information Sharing in Humanitarian Emergencies. Washington, D.C. and Berkshire, UK: UN Foundation & Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, 2011. Himelfarb, S. (Ed.). (2011, June 17). From Crisis to Communitiy: Mapping as a Peacebuilding Tool. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace. Infrastructure/Plan. (2011, April 5). Retrieved May 31, 2011, from http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Infrastructure/Plan London Governance Discussions. (n.d.). Retrieved June 19, 2011, from http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/London_Governance _Discussions Lurie, Y. (2010, Feb 19). CrisisCommonsGovernance: What do you think our mission statement is? [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://groups.google.com/group/crisiscommonsgovernance McManus, E. (2011, July 13). Watching Ushahidis Mumbai response unfold, with co-founder Erik Hersman [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blog.ted.com/2011/07/13/watchingushahidis-mumbai-response-unfold-with-co-founder-erik-hersman/

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Verity, Andrej. (2011, June 29). Communities of Interest. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/a/virginia.edu/document/d/168-e1VHj9xf8xDyWV8F12ONY6dbNFctYUkR69Ld46o/edit?authkey=CNz75LgO&hl=en_US&pli =1