The Sitrep Project is an initiative within the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley to document and evaluate the use of situation reports, or "sitreps," in NGO humanitarian response efforts. Our ultimate aim is to help improve information management and sharing practices in NGOs involved in disaster relief.

Background

The findings of the first phase of the Emergency Capacity Building project indicate significant potential for improving the process of situation reporting; staff in multiple organizations have expressed concern with the ability of the current format and process to effectively convey key emergency situational data from the field to headquarters. From an information management perspective, the current system suggests a number of issues: the loosely structured data cannot be easily aggregated for analysis; the email-based distribution system puts weak controls on who can read or modify the reports; and the lack of shared data standards makes it difficult to share information effectively across multiple organizations, hindering coordination in disaster situations. These observations suggest that even small or incremental changes to the current sitrep process could have a significant benefit to organizations involved in emergency response.

Goals

Our goal in the first year of the project is to produce a research report with recommendations for improving the sitrep process. We will document and evaluate the current processes associated with the creation, distribution, and use of emergency sitreps, in order to identify problems and opportunities in the current process, the format of the information being collected, and the systems used to collect and analyze that data. Contingent on the research results and organizational relationships established in the first year, the primary goal of the project within the second year will be to prototype a system to address some of the most critical issues and to take advantage of opportunities, especially in the areas of information sharing and aggregation and the presentation of data.

Team

The project team for the first year includes three Master's students, all within the School of Information:

The faculty adviser for the project is Jenna Burrell. For more information, feel free to contact Nick Rabinowitz at nrabinow@ischool.berkeley.edu.