www.nap.edu)
Copyright 1999 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights
reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Engineering
Institute of Medicine
National Research Council
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit,
self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in
scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance
of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare.
Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in
1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the
federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce
M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in
1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a
parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in
its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing
with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for
advising the federal government. The National Academy of
Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting
national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes
the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is
president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the
National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent
members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy
matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts
under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences
by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal
government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of
medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is
president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the
National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad
community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of
furthering knowledge and advising the federal government.
Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the
Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of
both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of
Engineering in providing services to the government, the public,
and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is
administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of
Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman
and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research
Council.
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COMMITTEE ON COMPUTING AND COMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH TO ENABLE
BETTER USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN GOVERNMENT
WILLIAM L. SCHERLIS, Carnegie Mellon University,
Chair
W. BRUCE CROFT, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
DAVID DeWITT, University of Wisconsin at Madison
SUSAN DUMAIS, Microsoft Research
WILLIAM EDDY, Carnegie Mellon University
EVE GRUNTFEST, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
DAVID KEHRLEIN, Governor's Office of Emergency Services, State
of California
SALLIE KELLER-McNULTY, Los Alamos National Laboratory
MICHAEL R. NELSON, IBM
CLIFFORD NEUMAN, Information Sciences Institute, University of
Southern California
Staff
MARJORY S. BLUMENTHAL, Director
JON EISENBERG, Program Officer and Study Director
RITA GASKINS, Project Assistant
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COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD
DAVID D. CLARK, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Chair
FRANCES E. ALLEN, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
JAMES CHIDDIX, Time Warner Cable
JOHN M. CIOFFI, Stanford University
W. BRUCE CROFT, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
A.G. (SANDY) FRASER, AT&T
SUSAN L. GRAHAM, University of California at Berkeley
JAMES GRAY, Microsoft Corporation
PATRICK M. HANRAHAN, Stanford University
JUDITH HEMPEL, University of California at San Francisco
BUTLER W. LAMPSON, Microsoft Corporation
EDWARD D. LAZOWSKA, University of Washington
DAVID LIDDLE, Interval Research
JOHN MAJOR, Wireless Knowledge
TOM M. MITCHELL, Carnegie Mellon University
DONALD NORMAN, Nielsen Norman Group
RAYMOND OZZIE, Groove Networks
DAVID A. PATTERSON, University of California at Berkeley
LEE SPROULL, Boston University
LESLIE L. VADASZ, Intel Corporation
Staff
MARJORY S. BLUMENTHAL, Director
HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Scientist
JERRY R. SHEEHAN, Senior Program Officer
ALAN S. INOUYE, Program Officer
JON EISENBERG, Program Officer
GAIL PRITCHARD, Program Officer
JANET BRISCOE, Office Manager
DAVID DRAKE, Project Assistant
MARGARET MARSH, Project Assistant
DAVID PADGHAM, Project Assistant (offsite)
MICKELLE RODGERS, Senior Project Assistant
SUZANNE OSSA, Senior Project Assistant
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COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICS, AND
APPLICATIONS
PETER M. BANKS, Veridian ERIM International, Inc.,
Co-chair
W. CARL LINEBERGER, University of Colorado, Co-chair
WILLIAM F. BALLHAUS, JR., Lockheed Martin Corp.
SHIRLEY CHIANG, University of California at Davis
MARSHALL H. COHEN, California Institute of Technology
RONALD G. DOUGLAS, Texas A&M University
SAMUEL H. FULLER, Analog Devices, Inc.
JERRY P. GOLLUB, Haverford College
MICHAEL F. GOODCHILD, University of California at Santa
Barbara
MARTHA P. HAYNES, Cornell University
WESLEY T. HUNTRESS, JR., Carnegie Institution
CAROL M. JANTZEN, Westinghouse Savannah River Company
PAUL G. KAMINSKI, Technovation, Inc.
KENNETH H. KELLER, University of Minnesota
JOHN R. KREICK, Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Co. (retired)
MARSHA I. LESTER, University of Pennsylvania
DUSA McDUFF, State University of New York at Stony Brook
JANET NORWOOD, U.S. Commissioner of Labor Statistics
(retired)
M. ELISABETH PATÉ-CORNELL, Stanford University
NICHOLAS P. SAMIOS, Brookhaven National Laboratory
ROBERT J. SPINRAD, Xerox PARC (retired)
NORMAN METZGER, Executive Director (through July 1999)
MYRON F. UMAN, Acting Executive Director (as of August 1999)
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Preface
As part of its new Digital Government program, the National
Science Foundation (NSF) requested that the Computer Science and
Telecommunications Board (CSTB) undertake an in-depth study of how
information technology research and development could more
effectively support advances in the use of information technology
in government. CSTB's Committee on Computing and Communications
Research to Enable Better Use of Information Technology in
Government was established to organize two specific
application-area workshops and conduct a broader study, based on
these and other workshops, of how information technology research
can enable improved and new government services, operations, and
interactions with citizens.
The committee was asked to identify ways to foster interaction
among computing and communications researchers, federal managers,
and professionals in specific domains that can lead to
collaborative research efforts. By establishing research links
between these communities and creating testbeds aimed at meeting
relevant requirements, NSF hopes to stimulate thinking in the
computing and communications research community and throughout
government about possibilities for advances in technology that will
support a variety of digital government initiatives.
The first phase of the project focused on two illustrative
application areas that are inherently governmental in
nature—crisis management and federal statistics. The study
committee convened two workshops to bring together stakeholders
from the individual domains with researchers in computing and
communications systems. The workshops were designed
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to facilitate interaction between the communities of
stakeholders, provide specific feedback to mission agencies and
NSF, and identify good examples of information technology research
challenges that would also apply throughout the government. The
first of these workshops, "Research in Information Technology to
Support Crisis Management," was held on December 1–2, 1998,
in Washington, D.C., and is summarized in this volume. A second
workshop, "Information Technology Research for Federal Statistics,"
was held February 9–10, 1999. The National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA), one of the participating agencies in a
federal interagency applications team addressing crisis
management,1 was a co-sponsor of
the study's workshop on crisis management.
Participants in the crisis management workshop were drawn from
the information technology research, information technology
research management, and crisis management communities (see
Appendix A). Building on CSTB's earlier work,2 the workshop focused specifically on
how to move forward from the current technology baseline to future
possibilities for addressing the information technology needs of
crisis managers through research. The workshop provided an
opportunity for these separate communities to interact and to learn
how they might more effectively collaborate in developing improved
systems to support crisis management in the long term.
Two keynote speeches outlined the status and current trends in
the crisis management and information technology research
communities. A set of case studies (summarized in Appendix B) and a
subsequent panel explored a range of ways in which information
technology is currently used in crisis management and articulated a
set of challenges to the full development and exploitation of
information technology for crisis management. The next panel
described trends in key information technologies—computing and
storage information management, databases, wireless communications,
and wearable computers—to establish a baseline for defining
future research efforts. Through a set of parallel breakout
1In February
1997, the Federal Information Services and Applications Council
(FISAC) of the National Science and Technology Council's Computing
Information and Communications Research and Development (CIC
R&D) Subcommittee created an interagency applications team to
address crises management. This group, now referred to as the
Information Technology for Crisis Management (ITCM) Team, was
established to promote collaborations among federal, state, local,
and international governmental organizations and other sectors of
the economy in order to identify, develop, test, and implement
computing, information, and communications technologies for crises
management applications.
2Computer
Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council.
1997. Computing and Communications in the Extreme. National
Academy Press, Washington, D.C. (summarized in Appendix C).
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sessions, workshop participants explored opportunities for
collaborative research between the information technology and
crisis management communities and identified a set of important
research topics. The workshop concluded with panels that considered
research management issues related to collaboration between the two
communities and how the results of the workshop related to the
broader context of digital government. This summary report is based
on these presentations and discussions.
The development of specific requirements is, of course, beyond
the scope of a single workshop, and therefore this report cannot
presume to be a comprehensive analysis of the information
technology requirements posed by crisis management.3 Nor is it an effort aimed at
identifying immediate solutions (or ways of funding and deploying
them). Rather, it examines opportunities for engaging the
information technology research and crisis management communities
in longer-term research activities of mutual interest and
illustrates substantive and process issues relating to
collaboration between them.
The organization and content of this report approximately follow
that of the workshop. For clarity of presentation, the committee
has in several instances aggregated sessions in this reporting.
Also, where possible, related points drawn from throughout the
workshop have been combined into consolidated discussions. In
preparing this summary, the committee has drawn on the
contributions of speakers, panelists, and participants in the
workshop, who provided a rich set of illustrations of the role of
information technology in crisis management, issues regarding its
use, possible research opportunities, and process and
implementation issues related to such research. Workshop
participants and reviewers of the report provided clarification and
additional examples subsequent to the workshop. To these the
committee has added some additional context-setting material and
examples. But this summary report remains primarily a reporting on
the presentations and discussions at the workshop.
Synthesis of the workshop experience into a more general,
broader set of findings and recommendations for information
technology research in the digital government context is deferred
to the main report from this committee. This second phase of the
project will draw on the two workshops organized by the study
committee, as well as additional briefings and other work on the
topic of digital government, to develop a final synthesis report
that will provide recommendations for refining the NSF's Digital
Government program and providing more broad-based advice across the
government in this arena.
3The
interagency ITCM team is working to develop such requirements.
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Support for this project came from NSF and NASA. The committee
acknowledges Larry Brandt of the NSF and Anngienetta Johnson of
NASA along with the other members of the interagency Information
Technology for Crisis Management team for their encouragement and
support of this project. This is a reporting of workshop
discussions, and the committee thanks all participants for their
insights expressed in the workshop presentations, discussions,
breakout sessions, and subsequent interactions.
The committee also wishes to thank the CSTB staff for their
assistance with the workshop and the preparation of the report. Jon
Eisenberg, CSTB program officer, made significant contributions to
the organization of the workshop and the assembly of the report.
His excellent facilitation, hard work, and valuable insights were
pivotal in producing this report. Jane Bortnick Griffith, interim
CSTB director in 1998, played a key role in helping conceive and
initiate this project. The committee also thanks Rita Gaskins, who
assisted in organizing committee meetings, marshalling committee
members, organizing the workshop, and preparing the report.
Finally, the committee is grateful to the reviewers for helping to
sharpen and improve the report through their comments.
Responsibility for the report remains with the committee.
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Acknowledgment of Reviewers
This report was reviewed by individuals chosen for their diverse
perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures
approved by the National Research Council's (NRC's) Report Review
Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide
candid and critical comments that will assist the authors and the
NRC in making the published report as sound as possible and to
ensure that the report meets institutional standards for
objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The
contents of the review comments and draft manuscript remain
confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We wish to thank the following individuals for their participation
in the review of this report:
Charles N. Brownstein, Corporation for National Research
Initiatives,
Melvyn Ciment, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies,
David Cowen, University of South Carolina,
David J. Farber, University of Pennsylvania,
Andrew C. Gordon, University of Washington,
John R. Harrald, George Washington University,
John D. Hwang, City of Los Angeles Information Technology
Agency,
David Maier, Oregon Graduate Institute,
Lois Clark McCoy, National Institute for Urban Search and
Rescue,
Thomas O'Keefe, California Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection,
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John Poindexter, Syntek, and
Gio Wiederhold, Stanford University.
Although the individuals listed above provided many constructive
comments and suggestions, responsibility for the final content of
this report rests solely with the study committee and the NRC.
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Contents
1
Introduction
1
What Is Crisis Management?
2
The Response Phase: Difficult
Challenges for Information Technology
5
Information Technology Users in
Crises
6
Citizens
6
Crisis Responders
6
Government and Other Crisis
Management Organizations
7
Business
9
Information Technology Challenges and
Opportunities in Crisis Management
10
Previous Study
10
This Workshop Report
11
2
Information Technology Trends Relevant to Crisis Management
13
Computing and Storage
13
Information Management
15
Databases
17
Wireless Communications
19
Trends in Wearable Computers
22
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3
Information Technology Research Opportunities
25
Information Management
25
Information Acquisition
26
Integration and
Interoperability
26
Data Delivery
29
Geographical Information System
Performance
29
Information for People
29
Presenting and Using
Information
31
Supporting Effective
Communications and Coordination
31
Supporting Effective Real-Time
Decision Making Under Uncertainty and Stress
32
Handling Information Overload
33
Overcoming Language and Other
Barriers to Communication
34
Warning Citizens at Risk
34
Learning from Experience
36
Using Wearable Computing
37
Information Infrastructure
38
Robustness
39
Infrastructure for Citizens
40
Modeling and Simulation
41
Role of Modeling and
Simulation
41
Research Opportunities
42
Electronic Commerce
44
Problems Caused by the Increased
Use of and Dependence on Electronic Commerce
44
Benefits of Electronic Commerce
in Crisis Management
45
Pitfalls of Traditional
Electronic Commerce in Crisis Management
45
Research Opportunities
46
4
Achieving an Impact in the Crisis Management Community
48
Interactions between the Information
Technology Research and Crisis Management Communities
48
Management Challenges to Using
Information Technology in Crisis Management
51
5
The Broader Context: Information Technology in Government
54
Information Technology Challenges
across Government
58
Achieving Innovation
59
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Appendixes
A
Detailed Workshop Agenda and Participants
65
B
Brief Case Studies of Crises
71
C
Synopsis of the CSTB Report Computing and Communications in the
Extreme
82
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