Situational awareness takes many forms, ranging from the shared understanding among decision-makers in a control room—often facilitated by a common operational picture yet complicated by multiple communication channels and diverse organizational cultures—to the awareness of the affected public in a disaster area. It extends to organizations leveraging social media analytics, citizens using mobile applications to report needs, individuals with disabilities relying on specific digital tools, digital volunteers engaged in crisis mapping, and multidisciplinary stakeholders collaborating to counter systemic risks in major crises.
What unites these scenarios is that situational awareness is rarely achieved in isolation; it emerges within a team and even across teams. Collaboration in emergency management is equally diverse. It might involve a tightly coordinated team of firefighters or a mixed group of police officers, paramedics, and firefighters managing a major traffic accident. Large-scale disaster relief efforts often bring together well-organized entities like the Red Cross alongside spontaneous volunteers who must work in sync with first responders to maximize efficiency. Smooth evacuations equally rely on collaboration between responders, volunteers, and the public.
This diversity of stakeholders creates what can be seen as a "trading zone," where developing a shared understanding and situational awareness becomes essential. In control rooms, this is frequently supported by software tools that provide a common operational picture. Achieving effective collaboration in such contexts requires a clear, shared vocabulary and consistent semiotics to avoid misunderstandings and ensure smooth operations.
Software designed to support situational awareness and collaboration must consider the needs of diverse users with varying backgrounds and abilities. In disaster scenarios, situational disabilities—temporary impairments caused by the environment or stress—and challenges to situational awareness can make technology harder to use. This is where the principles of universal design in ICT become critical, ensuring usability for everyone, including persons with disabilities, the elderly and other vulnerable groups.
Moreover, gender dynamics and intersectionality play key roles in shaping effective collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Another vital factor is trust. These factors must also inform the design and development of support systems for situational awareness, fostering equitable and inclusive solutions that enhance cooperation and usability for all involved.
We aim to contribute to more effective digital work practices among emergency stakeholders related to collection, integration, analysis, and communication of information supporting situational awareness, coordination and decision making in emergency operations.
We explore new data sources relevant for command-and-control centers and first responders, such as the use of cognitive and artificial intelligence (AI), command and control software, UAV technologies, IoT for public safety, and crowdsourcing platforms using multidisciplinary approaches and a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods.
Research Keywords
- The socio-technical, informational, risks
- Collaborative aspects of developing and using technologies and information systems in the context of the full-disaster lifecycle i.e., preparedness, warning, impact, response, recovery, and mitigation.
- The interconnectedness of people, organizations, information, and technology during crises and the ways in which design, development and usage of the information systems and new technologies
- Socio-behavioral phenomena connected to emergency management, including in testing and training.
- Individual -, team - and shared situational awareness
- Common operational picture
- Trading zones in collaborative EM, including the role of IS and communication technologies,
- Various information sources including sensor data and social media in enhancing or hindering the individual and team situation awareness.
- Social Media Analytics for organizational SA and crisis communication.
- Decision-support, decision-support systems and command and control systems.
- Information sharing and information overload in emergency management,
- Interactive learning environments, modelling and simulation that are relevant for emergency management, including learning from incidents and technology support that enable more effective evaluation and joint learning from events and exercises
- Crowd-sourcing, digital volunteers and crisis mapping,
- Security, and safety on location during crises and disasters
- Systemic risks, systemic risk modelling, and risk assessment
- Digitalization and new technologies that affect emergency management work practices
- Design and technology integration to support both professional emergency responders and volunteers in emergency operations.
- Polarization in society caused by to new technologies or emerging issues
- The role of AI in collaborative emergency management
- Diversity, inclusion, universal design, ableism in ICT for resilience and emergency management.
- Gender perspectives, intersectionality, cultural diversity in emergency management.
Members
- hege.wallevik@uia.no
- Phone
- +47 38 14 22 22
- jaziar.radianti@uia.no
- Phone
- +47 37 23 34 35
- astrid.b.stensrud@uia.no
- Phone
- +47 38 14 14 48
- bjorn.e.munkvold@uia.no
- Phone
- +47 38 14 17 72
- kjetil.rustenberg@uia.no
- Phone
- +47 38 14 26 18
- lucia.c.herrera@uia.no
- Phone
- +47 38 14 17 67
- andreas.prinz@uia.no
- Phone
- +47 37 23 32 20
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- jose.j.gonzalez@uia.no
- Phone
- +47 37 23 32 40
- terje.gjosater@uia.no
- Phone
- +47 38 14 11 59
- hanne.haaland@uia.no
- Phone
- +47 38 14 23 62