1) The document describes a case study of various organizations that collaborated on disaster response efforts during the 2015 Nepal earthquake. This included using volunteers to analyze social media data and identify urgent needs. 2) It discusses challenges of conducting research during disasters and questions whether the Nepal model could be applied to future studies. This includes identifying mutually beneficial research topics and whether similar results could be obtained. 3) It proposes the Disaster Research Response repository to facilitate future research collaboration between practitioners and researchers during disasters.

1. Getting Disaster Data Right: A Call
for Real-time Research in Disaster
Response
May 23, 2018
Steve Peterson, National Institutes of Health
Chris Thompson, Humanity Road
Cat Graham, Humanity Road
ISCRAM 2018
The 15th International Conference on Information
Systems for Crisis Response and Management

2. Agenda
• Case Study
• Correlate experiences to past research findings
• Recommendations and proposed strategies for
conducting future research during disasters

3. Introduction: Organizations Involved

4. April 25, 2015
• Magnitude 7.8 Nepal earthquake
– Killed ~9,000 people
– Epicenter: Barpak, a village east of the Gorkha District
Niranjan Shrestha/AP Images
April 25, 2015
7.8 earthquake

5. Kathmandu Living Labs (KLL)
• Initiated QuakeMap to serve as an information hub
for public relief urgent needs
– 4,000+ worldwide remote contributors plotted data
• Sought crisis mapping assistance & urgent needs
identification and coordination
April 25, 2015
7.8 earthquake

6. Americares
• Mobilized its medical teams to provide assistance &
assess status of damage to health infrastructure
• Sought assistance in identifying missing hospital
addresses and contact information & assessing
health infrastructure damage
April 25, 2015
7.8 earthquake

7. Humanity Road
• Overall disaster response activities involved multiple
mission-specific projects spanning 49 days
• Situation reports
• Social media monitoring/amplification
• QuakeMap platform administrator
• Data mining
• Information gathering
• Requested surge support assistance to aid in
providing updates to KLL & Americares
April 25, 2015
7.8 earthquake

8. Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)
• Reviewed data for urgent needs, medical
information, & operating field hospital locations over
a 48 hour period
April 25, 2015
7.8 earthquake

9. About CERT
• 500+ volunteers
• Managed by Montgomery County Maryland Fire &
Rescue Services
• 6 week CERT Basic Course Training Topics
– Disaster Preparedness
– Fire Suppression Strategies
– Medical Operations Part I & II
– Light Search & Rescue Operations
– Psychology
– Course Review and Disaster Simulation

10. About CERT: Introduction of Technology Core Capability

11. Task Assignments
• Keyword determination & search with social media
analytics tool
• Gather information on pre-identified hospitals and
villages
Task assignments changed midway through virtual activation
• Seek urgent need requests and pertinent information
on villages in three priority districts

12. Team Coordination and Communication
• Volunteer management system
email (20 volunteers responded)
• Daily conference calls
– Collective decisions based on
situational awareness1
• Resource updates to Google
document
1Van de Walle, B., Brugghemans, B., and Comes, T. (2016). Improving situation awareness in crisis response teams: An experimental analysis
of enriched information and centralized coordination. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 95, pp. 66-79.

13. Data Collection and Analysis Model
Team Lead Oversight
Static Data
(Medical-related keywords, priority districts,
villages, and hospital addresses)
Team 1
Dynamic Data
(Emerging urgent needs and hospital
statuses)
Team 2
Consolidation of analyzed data
Continuous leadership involvement supported test results of a 2011 study2 suggesting
virtual team leaders, during crises, be more active to increase team members
motivation3.
2Jenster, N.P. and Steiler, D. (2011). Turning Up the Volume in Inter-personal Leadership: Motivating and Building Cohesive Virtual Teams during
Times of Economic Crisis. Advances in Global Leadership, pp. 267-297.
3Yu, X. and Khazanchi, D. (2017). Studying Virtual Teams during Organizational Crisis from a Sociomaterial Perspective. Proceedings of the 14th
ISCRAM Conference, Albi, France. May 2017. pp. 1055-1064.

14. Information System and Human Data Analysis
• Humanity Road provided access to a social media
analytics information system called Scanigo
– Improved ability to refine data into more manageable
workloads, thus minimizing risk of information overload4
1.2 million unfiltered
earthquake‐related tweets,
retweets, shares, & posts
Filtering/Categorization
213,000 medical‐related
categorized tweets,
retweets, shares, & posts
Ranking
2,132 medical‐related
ranked tweets, retweets,
shares, & posts
Human Data Analysis
41 urgent
needs
SM Analytics
Toolkit
SM Analytics
Toolkit
4Gonzalez, J. J., Labaka, L., Hiltz, S. R., and Turoff, M. (2016). Insights from a Simulation Model of Disaster Response: Generalization and
Action Points. 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS).

15. Social media post
Continue to next
social media post
No
Unverified?
Rumor/Fake news?
No or
Uncertain
Official agency
already respond?
Yes
No
Clarifying facts
available?
Yes
Yes Yes
Location based
on photo etc.?
Yes
Continue to next
social media post
Yes
Continue to next
social media post
Outdated
Relevant to
ESF* assignment?
Urgent?
Yes
Accurate & not
outdated?
Yes
Yes
(notify team
lead)
Team Collaborative Working Document
No or
Uncertain
Useful & from
credible source
No
Photo, video, audio?
No or
Uncertain
Actionable
IntelligenceVerified Report
Team Lead
Analysis
Potential value to
assignment?
No Continue to next
social media post
No
Continue to next
social media post
No
Yes
Human Data Analysis (SM Verification Steps)
Social media post Not all inclusive
Actionable
IntelligenceVerified Report
Team Lead
Analysis
Continue to next
social media post
No
Unverified?
Rumor/Fake news?
No or
Uncertain
Official agency
already respond?
Yes
No
Clarifying facts
available?
Yes
Yes Yes
Location based
on photo etc.?
Yes
Continue to next
social media post
Yes
Continue to next
social media post
Outdated
Relevant to
ESF* assignment?
*ESF: Emergency Support Function
Urgent?
Yes
Accurate & not
outdated?
Yes
Yes
(notify team
lead)
Team Collaborative Working Document
No or
Uncertain
Useful & from
credible source
No
Photo, video, audio?
No or
Uncertain
Potential value to
assignment?
No Continue to next
social media post
No
Continue to next
social media post
No
Yes

16. Verified Data Distribution Process

17. Results
• 200+ volunteer hours
• Health & medical keywords (413)
• Medical-related urgent needs (41)
• Hospital status updates (100)
~60% completed
• Health & medical information on
Village Development Committees
(85)
~40% completed

18. Discussion

19. Discussion Questions
• Could the Nepal virtual activation model be applied
to researcher planning for future studies?
How much
outdated?
How fast?
How fast from time
discovered to action taken?
Stayed within lane? During data analysis period, known fake news/rumors
may have been identified leading to analyst to quickly
ignore investing further time. Did they?
Did analyst make any “no” decisions based off
simple conclusion w/o a degree of skepticism?
Were they skeptical of
their own skepticism?

20. Discussion Questions
• Can practitioner-researcher consensus be achieved to identify
mutually beneficial measurable topics for future research
consideration during disasters?
• Would conducting research within a time-sensitive accelerated
environment, using the same methods of research conducted post-
disaster, generate similar or different results?
• Can the same prior research study conducted post-disaster also be
applied during disasters in an effort to garner previously unknown,
undocumented intelligence?

21. Discussion Questions
• Can research methods and data collection strategies be applied to
practitioners’ decision-making needs?
• Can social media disaster research be performed during a disaster
which generates results that convince skeptical practitioners of social
media applicability and value?
Available Research Resources: Volunteers

22. Disaster Research Response (DR2) Repository & Website
Website: http://dr2.nlm.nih.gov
Contact: dr2@nih.gov

23. Thank You
Thank you!
Steve Peterson, CEM
Emergency Management Specialist
National Institutes of Health
steve.peterson@nih.gov
Chris Thompson
President
Humanity Road
chris@humanityroad.org
Cat Graham
Director of Operations
Humanity Road
cat@humanityroad.org