Active / Published IT & New Media Projects

To create an outlet for students to produce multimedia content, teach them about digital media tools, and push the boundaries of video on the internet. Learn more

To develop a working prototype of a microscopy device that will perform rapid optical screening for diseases by collecting and transmitting images via a camera cell phone. Learn more

The Sitrep project is an initiative within the context of the School of Information's Information Services Design Clinic to investigate the challenges and opportunities for situation reporting in disaster response. Phase I The first phase of the project, spanning the 2007-2008 academic year, is devoted to exploratory research 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. Our approach to this research has been a combination of qualitative research methods, including interviews and roundtable discussions with a wide range of stakeholders, and document analysis of a large sample of sitreps from NGO and UN sources. We have conducted 32 interviews and four roundtables to date, along with an initial document analysis, and we intend to complete several more interviews and a more extensive document analysis within the next month. The result of this work, to be completed in early May, will be a research report detailing our findings on the current process as it exists in a range of organizations, including an in-depth evaluation of situation reporting within OCHA, which acts as a central point of collection and aggregation for information from a wide variety of NGOs and UN agencies during emergencies, and which issues its own situation reports that aim at giving a general snapshot of the events. We will offer initial recommendations for a generalized sitrep data model, along with suggestions for technical approaches appropriate to an improved system. Phase II We plan to conduct the second phase of the project during the of the summer of 2008. This phase would be a continuation of this research, centered on visits to NGO and OCHA field offices in several countries. To date, the majority of our work has been with staff in the U.S.-based headquarters offices of the various agencies, supplemented by phone interviews with staff in the field. Our proposed research for the second phase would include visits to at least two countries in which OCHA and NGO staff maintain a significant presence, as well as a visit to OCHA and NGO offices in Geneva, a key nexus of communication and interaction between organizations involved in international disaster relief. These visits would include a range of interviews and roundtables with staff responsible for collecting and reporting key information in emergencies. Contingent on the resources available to the project, we also hope to conduct one or more surveys of sitrep recipients and to perform an additional in-depth document analysis, both focused on emergencies in the countries we visit. This combination of methods could offer a rich and nuanced understanding of the reporting context in each country, informing a more accurate and effective approach to data modeling and technical implementation. Phase III Contingent on the findings and organizational partnerships established in Phases I and II, the third phase of the project, spanning the 2008-2009 academic year, would focus on finalizing the document model and implementing a prototype for an improved sitrep system. Though we believe that this work could have significant benefit for organizations involved in disaster response, it is our strong contention that its success - and indeed its justification - must be founded on the in-depth research we conduct in Phases I and II, and that it would be premature to scope this phase out further until we have prepared our initial results. Learn more