A Qualitative Methodology for the Validation of a Common Information Space to Improve Crisis Management: Results from the SecInCoRe Project

Abstract

Since the 1992 Earth Summit, 4.4 billion people or 64% of the world’s population have been affected by disasters and the number of crisis has more than doubled [8, 15]. In a world where disasters strike more frequently and with more intensity, governments and emergency services have a strong incentive to increase efficiency and resilience of information systems used to plan or to manage the crises. The SecInCoRe project, financed by the European Union under the FP7 Security framework, draws a socio-technical concept of a Common Information Space (CIS) to solve the most urgent challenges faced by emergency services and first responders. Among others: enhancing interoperability and communication within different organisations at national and at European level, promoting the involvement and participation of the users in line with what is requested by Next Generation Internet Initiative. In parallel to the CIS concept design, the project developed a strategy for the validation and evaluation of the project components and concepts through the use of a CIS Demonstrator. The SecInCoRe Validation and Evaluation Strategy (VES) is based on a combined approach which integrates elements of the E-OCVM methodology [6] with the SEQUOIA methodology [11]. This paper presents the strategy that was used to validate and evaluate the SecInCoRe outcomes and its results. The aim is to report on the feedback of users from emergency services to make clear how and why a socio-technical system as the CIS could help them in the management of a crisis.