Developing a Framework for Stigmergic Human Collaboration with Technology Tools: Cases in Emergency Response
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Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE January 2015 Developing a Framework for Stigmergic Human Collaboration with Technology Tools: Cases in Emergency Response Janet Hinda Watkins Marsden Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Marsden, Janet Hinda Watkins, "Developing a Framework for Stigmergic Human Collaboration with Technology Tools: Cases in Emergency Response" (2015). Dissertations - ALL. 299. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/299 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract. Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), particularly social media and geographic information systems (GIS), have become a transformational force in emergency response. Social media enables ad hoc collaboration, providing timely, useful information dissemination and sharing, and helping to overcome limitations of time and place. Geographic information systems increase the level of situation awareness, serving geospatial data using interactive maps, animations, and computer generated imagery derived from sophisticated global remote sensing systems. Digital workspaces bring these technologies together and contribute to meeting ad hoc and formal emergency response challenges through their affordances of situation awareness and mass collaboration. Distributed ICTs that enable ad hoc emergency response via digital workspaces have arguably made traditional top-down system deployments less relevant in certain situations, including emergency response (Merrill, 2009; Heylighen, 2007a, b). Heylighen (2014, 2007a, b) theorizes that human cognitive stigmergy explains some self- organizing characteristics of ad hoc systems. Elliott (2007) identifies cognitive stigmergy as a factor in mass collaborations supported by digital workspaces. Stigmergy, a term from biology, refers to the phenomenon of self-organizing systems with agents that coordinate via perceived changes in the environment rather than direct communication. In the present research, ad hoc emergency response is examined through the lens of human cognitive stigmergy. The basic assertion is that ICTs and stigmergy together make possible highly effective ad hoc collaborations in circumstances where more typical collaborative methods break down. The research is organized into three essays: an in-depth analysis of the development and deployment of the Ushahidi emergency response software platform, a comparison of the emergency response ICTs used for emergency response during Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, and a process model developed from the case studies and relevant academic literature is described. DEVELOPING A FRAMEWORK FOR STIGMERGIC HUMAN COLLABORATION WITH TECHNOLOGY TOOLS: CASES IN EMERGENCY RESPONSE by Janet Marsden B.S., University of Rhode Island, 1980 M.B.A., St. John Fisher College, 1993 M.S., Syracuse University, 1998 M.P.S. SUNY ESF, 2007 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Science and Technology. Syracuse University August 2015 Copyright © Janet Marsden 2015 All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements I would like to first acknowledge my co-advisors, Jeffrey Stanton and Jason Dedrick. No student could ask or hope for two better advisors during the incredibly demanding and challenging process of producing a successful dissertation. Their guidance has been invaluable and my work has been improved immeasurably through their efforts. In fact, they deserve at least as much credit for this dissertation as I do. I would also like to thank my other committee members, Nancy McCracken and Patricia Longstaff, for their help, support and encouragement during the lengthy process. Many thanks as well to Steven Sawyer and Barbara Kwasnik, Chairs of the PhD program during my progress. Both were enormously helpful to me during my studies. Also, my two dissertation readers, Arthur Thomas and Kendall Phillips, and the examination chair, Philip Good, made my defense experience resemble a stimulating and enlightening discussion, for which I am forever grateful to them. I am also very grateful to the faculty and staff of the School of Information Studies (the iSchool), who did everything possible to help me succeed. Through my time in both the master’s and PhD programs, I have come to know these dedicated people as consistently helpful and positive. Their performance and talents are a credit to the university. I would also like to thank David Chandler, my research mentor in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His encouragement and faith in my abilities made a huge difference in my progress and eventual success. My family and friends, especially my husband Keith, deserve commendations for their unfailing patience and love, and for their continued confidence in me, especially during the times when I doubted that I would ever finish. Thank you all so much. iv Table of Contents Chapter 1 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Problem statement and research goals 3 1.3 Research questions 5 1.4. Summary of the conceptual framework 5 1.4.1 The starting model 6 1.4.2 The ending model 6 1.5 Research Methods 10 1.5.1 Case study method 10 1.5.2 Historical narrative 11 1.5.3 Critical incident technique 12 1.5.4 Visual analysis 15 1.6 Summary of the cases 16 1.6.1 Ushahidi 17 1.6.2 Katrina 19 1.6.3 Sandy 20 1.7 Concluding statement 21 Chapter 2 Essay: Stigmergic Self-organization and the Improvisation of Ushahidi 23 Abstract 2.1 Introduction 24 2.2 Research questions 27 v 2.3 Theoretical framework and constructs 28 2.3.1 Human cognitive stigmergy and information systems development 28 2.3.2 Virtual organizations, virtual collaboration and human cognitive 32 stigmergy 2.3.3 Crowdsourcing, situation awareness and system intelligence 37 2.3.4 Maps, collaborating and virtual organizations 38 2.4 Technology review 42 2.5 Research Methodology and Methods 43 2.5.1 The critical incident technique 44 2.5.2 Data collection 45 2.5.3 Data Analysis 46 2.6 Summary of Results 46 2.7 Conclusion 50 Chapter 3 Essay: From Katrina to Sandy: Self-Organizing Digital Workspaces 53 in Dynamic Environments Abstract 3.1 Introduction 54 3.2 Research Questions 57 3.3 Theoretical framework and research method 57 3.3.1 Situation awareness 58 3.3.2 Human cognitive stigmergy and mass collaboration 60 3.3.3 Research method 62 3.4 Story of Hurricane Katrina, August 2005 63 3.4.1 Digital media 67 vi 3.4.2 Telecommunications 69 3.4.3 Radio and broadcast communications 70 3.4.4 Geospatial technologies 72 3.5 Story of Hurricane Sandy, October 2012 75 3.5.1 Digital media 77 3.5.2 Telecommunications 81 3.5.3 Radio and broadcast communications 82 3.5.4 Geospatial technologies 85 3.6 Answering the research questions 87 3.7 Summary and conclusions 96 Chapter 4 Essay: A Conceptual Framework for Stigmergic Human Collaboration 103 with Technology Tools Abstract 4.1 Introduction 104 4.2 Basic premise 105 4.3 Terms and definitions 105 4.3.1 Stigmergy and human cognitive stigmergy 105 4.3.2 Mass collaboration and virtual collaboration 107 4.3.3 Situation awareness and emergency response 110 4.3.4 Information and communications technology 114 4.4 A new situation awareness model for emergency response 117 4.4.1 Social media tools for collaborative communications 119 4.4.2 Geospatial imaging tools for enhanced situation awareness 121 vii 4.4.3 The importance and value of the new model 122 4.4.4 Limitations of the new model 123 4.5 Propositions 125 4.6 Conclusion 126 Chapter 5 Conclusion 128 5.1 Summary of the Results 128 5.1.1 Answering the research questions 128 5.1.2 A new collaborative situation awareness model for emergency response 133 enhanced with technology tools 5.1.3 The evolution of the model 135 5.1.4 The starting model 136 5.1.5 The ending model 136 5.2 Contributions of the Research 138 5.2.1 Theoretical contributions 139 5.2.2 Practical contributions 140 5.3 Limitations of the Research 149 5.4 Future Research 151 Appendices References 154 Chapter 2 Literature Review 170 Curriculum Vitae 179 viii List of Figures Figure 1. Screen shot of the original Ushahidi deployment 26 Figure 2. Locations of interactions between people collaborating 50 worldwide to translate emergency messages in the first week of Mission 4636 Figure 3. Group Collaborative Process 107 Figure 4. Prediction in Dynamic Environments (PRIDE) Situation Awareness 112 Model Figure 5. A new situation awareness model enhanced with technology tools for 118 stigmergic mass collaboration in emergency response ix List of Tables Table 1. Socio-Technical Model for Geographically Distributed Collaboration in 33 Global Virtual Teams Table 2. Chronology of Ushahidi development 46 Table 3. Ad hoc and formal mass collaborations generated in response to Katrina 90 Table 4. Ad hoc and formal mass collaborations generated in response to Sandy 91 x Preface This dissertation is composed of three essays exploring how information systems evolve spontaneously and by design. Not unexpectedly, this style of the presentation is generally referred to as the ‘three essay format’, a series of essays bounded by introductory and concluding chapters. The first essay examines the development of the Ushahidi emergency response software platform. The second essay compares two cases in emergency response: Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy. The third essay presents a conceptual framework and process model of how information and communications technology (ICT), human cognitive stigmergy, mass collaboration, and situation awareness are related in the context of emergency response. The essays are related to each other via the overarching themes of information systems as complex adaptive systems, how the evolution of information and communications technologies has shaped and been shaped by social action, and the application of information and communications technology to the challenges of achieving effective emergency response.