CCE Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Information Systems (DISS)

Department

Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences

Advisor

Marlyn K. Littman

Committee Member

Ling Wang

Committee Member

Steven D Zink

Keywords

community response grids, emergency management, social media, systems development life cycle, user acceptance

Abstract

During an emergency, information availability is critical to preserving life and minimizing damages. During the emergency response, however, information may not be available to those who need it. A community response grid (CRG) can help ameliorate this lack of availability by allowing people to document and distribute emergency information to professional emergency responders (PERs). A CRG combines mobile communications services, Internet technologies, e-government applications, and social network concepts with traditional emergency response systems.

The problem that this case study investigated was how to construct a CRG for the City of Dublin, Ohio, Division of Police that works in conjunction with an in-place emergency management system (EMS). The goal was to create a process that is replicable by similarly sized cities that wished to implement a CRG. In this investigation, the author examined CRG design and implementation issues such as message origin, training needs, policy design, security issues, and funding.

The results of this investigation were organized in terms of Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC) phases. Throughout these phases, the author identified information that can aid PERs in to better implement a CRG. Based on the results, the author developed a paradigm for constructing a CRG that meets the requirements of residents of the City of Dublin, Ohio, Division of Police and of similarly sized municipalities.

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