This document summarizes lessons learned from coordinating data collection efforts during the humanitarian response to crises in Japan and Libya in 2011. It identifies three levels of data that need to be coordinated: common operational datasets, community indicator data, and crisis-specific data. It notes the need for open data profiles at the local level and for GIS practitioners to enhance crisis mapping. Challenges included language barriers, coordination difficulties, and a lack of crisis information sharing from local governments. Improved planning, recruitment, communication and use of project management tools were recommended for future efforts.

1. Japan/Libya After Action Review Snapshot
June 15, 2011
for United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
New York, New York
Heather Blanchard
Co Founder, CrisisCommons
www.crisiscommons.org
heather@crisiscommons.org
Twitter/Skype: @poplifegirl

2. United Nations
Office for the
Coordination of
Humanitarian
Affairs
Task for Japan
Find CODs

3. Products
• Japan Open Data Profile
• UCLA Community Indicator Prototype
Map

4. What We Learned
Overall
• Three Distinct Levels of Data Collection, Coordination
• Common Operational Datasets
• Community Indicator Data
• Crisis Data Germane to the Event
• Need for Open Data Profiles at the Local Level
• Value of GIS Practitioners and their Role with Enhancing
Crisismapping Capability
• Need for Virtual Infrastructure Support

5. What Went Well
• Group was easy to find, liked Skype. Met a lot of people. Everyone wanted to help and was positive.
• Connecting Skills and People, Some liked working independantly
• “I didn’t think I had enough experience...but I contributed where I could”
• Mentoring of volunteers on Skype
• Wiki page “super organized”
• Group recognized and tried to eliminate duplication
• Google API and Fusion Table “was easy to use”
• “Some of my data sources ended up on an Android App, I felt I hit the mark”
• Collection of RSS for the Open Data Profile

6. Challenges
• “I was a bit confused, I had never been trained a bit”
• Japanese and their Keyboard
• Dreamhost went down
• All members are volunteers and can't assign heavy task. So need to divide small tasks and this
coordination is key for the community management.
• Accurate translated sentences. Most of translators are not professional translator. they can translate
simple Eng to Japanese but to online these sentences we need more professional translators.
Translators are good at language but not good IT tools(twitter,Facebook,googld doc etc).
• In some case, the momentum to "work on tasks' is too much without careful thinking. Expertise in
the subject, knowledge with the country as well as information, language, etc. may make someone's
perspective, view, and thought different from those without.

7. GISCorps Input
• Language Challenges - need to understand the local language and contacts in country who had knowledge/access to data. We
underestimate this challenge.
• Coordination Challenges on the Project - Preferences in communications (Skype vs. Google group), Who is Doing What on Each
Task
• It would have been better to have a briefing from Crisis Commons to let the team members have a clearer idea
of goals and objectives on the mission as well as how Crisis Commons works on the project. The initial goal set based on
UN OCHA was somewhat simpler than expected for the team members called for as GIS experts, and added some confusion
among us, partly due to our presumptions of end products, such as maps.
• It may have been better to have a more organized strategic plan from the beginning based on better communication with Crisis
Commons. Given data mining of GIS data and files from Japan as the main set goal in the beginning, the
GIS team members could have set additional goals from the beginning--maybe not on the first day, but after the
initial data search, taking into account the needs of refugees in Japan as well as organizations that are providing assistance and aids
to them.
• It may have been more effective to assess the needs within the GIS team, communicate with a Crisis Commons
contact person, and purposefully recruit more volunteers.
• Keep the open communication among the team members. In order to do so, it is important to come up with a better
idea to communicate than e-mailing. A to-do task list on Google Documents is one idea as one of the team members
implemented toward the end of the project. In addition, it may be a good idea to have one non-technical person who is designated
to organize information.
• Establish a good bi-directional communication between Crisis Commons/its volunteers and clients and the
team in order to make the team’s work efficient and effective.
• Perhaps adopting the use of project management web applications like Basecamp would be a useful addition to the
workflow (Basecamp allows for communications, to-do lists, milestones, wiki’s, and file sharing; all of which were features that were

8. What We Learned
On the Crisis Mgt Side
• Confusion on who was the lead for Missing Persons,
diverse systems deployed
• Absence of crisis information on local city or prefecture
websites, if there was crisis information, limited sharing
or data feeds
• Limited documentation of the Japan’s response plans at
any level in other languages
• Public emphasis on mobile phone support - ie.
communities were creating addresses and lists of local
charging stations

10. Volunteer: “This was perhaps something that should have been planned from the beginning.”

11. What We Learned
Official/Affiliated Response Sources Public Sources
Existing Data
Population - Boundaries - Hydrology - Hypsography - Transportation/Roads - Social Capital
Before Crisis Community Indicators Before Crisis
After Crisis Power - Telecommunications - Weather - Alternative Access to Internet - After Crisis
Food - Fuel - Shelter - Transportation - Health Care
Crisis Specific
Self-Directed Public Safety Reporting - Hazard Identification -
Service Disruption Identifier - Public Sentiment - Status Sharing - Resource Management
Need for Data Preparedness

12. Learning from Japan
• Need for a data coordination role
• Need for “pre positioned” open data profiles
• Need for increased GIS practitioners to work
along side of crisis mappers
• Need to turn citizen content into GIS layers
• Need for organizations affiliated with the crisis
to provide data feeds (i.e. private sector,
government response agencies)

13. Heather Blanchard
Co Founder
CrisisCommons
heather@crisiscommons.org
703.593.3823
twitter/skype: poplifegirl
www.facebook.com/heather.blanchard
www.linkedin.com/in/hblancha
Thanks!