2005 — 2007 |
Aiello, John Doerfel, Marya [⬀] Marsic, Ivan (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Dynamic Use of Social Network and Leadership Theories in Disaster Recovery @ Rutgers University New Brunswick
The information sources and accounts of the first returning people and organizations to the Gulf Coast Region (GCR) can be an integral part of the ability for subsequent returning people and organizations to determine their own logistic plans. Information, processes, and the how-to's of returning, rebuilding, and reconnecting in the GCR should come from sources like the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), but also, can come from the leaders, organizations, and new network associations (e.g., new and emerging community block associations) that will form, and actually succeed or fail at the process. Learning their experiences becomes yet another source of information sharing to help each subsequent reentrant succeed in their own return to the GCR. In contributing to long term goals, the information and derived models will help build proactive plans for communities that will inevitably face similar future disasters. This project is designed to track, distribute, and strategically manage such information and immediate resource needs, and with the management of such information, offer support in rebuilding the social networks and overall infrastructure of the GCR.
Yet, it is not just disseminating the information-as has already been attempted and done-but providing powerful theoretically framed methods and analyses to the management of the data, information, dissemination, and the related social processes involved. The hidden relationships and the subtle trends that drive the rebuilding of the GCR can be tracked by applying a theoretical understanding of the social processes. So, this multidisciplinary project employs communication networks, organizational psychology, and computer science theories. It advances a model for reconnecting and improving a community network structure by implementing and testing the effects of additional information resources on the network. Study objectives include: (1) Field research to uncover accounts of experiences as organizations return to their communities. The 'lessons learned' will be integrated with existing information resources that are meant to offer assistance to regional reentrants. (2) The existing information and "lessons learned" gleaned from field research will be part of an Intelligent Information System (I2S) that continuously builds a dynamic information hub based on the users' search patterns and usage. Project requirements include: (a) Support for field research that will involve use of minimally intrusive methods for gathering information about actual re-entry experiences, (b) Support to expand on the availability of the I2S as a resource for (re)building alliances; and (c) Ongoing online monitoring to adapt the database.
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0.915 |