TY - GEN
T1 - Furthering development of a unified emergency scale using Thurstone's Law of Comparative Judgment
T2 - 4th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM 2007
AU - Plotnick, Linda
AU - Gomez, Elizabeth Avery
AU - White, Connie
AU - Turoff, Murray
PY - 2007
Y1 - 2007
N2 - In disasters, local civilians on or near the scene, are often first to respond and give aid. Therefore, the public needs to be well-informed with accurate, time critical information. However, a primary information source is event-specific scales that are inconsistent in their categorization and measurement, adding confusion to public responsiveness. These scales are not extendable to new emergencies in a changing world. We argue for development of a unified emergency scale to facilitate communication and understanding. This scale will inform local communities with regional community-specific information, and will be extendable for further use by professional responders. Research in progress elicited 15 dimensions of an emergency using a Delphi-like process and then ranked the dimensions by importance utilizing Thurstone's Law of Comparative Judgment. Contributions of this paper are to highlight the need for an unequivocal, unified scale and further its development.
AB - In disasters, local civilians on or near the scene, are often first to respond and give aid. Therefore, the public needs to be well-informed with accurate, time critical information. However, a primary information source is event-specific scales that are inconsistent in their categorization and measurement, adding confusion to public responsiveness. These scales are not extendable to new emergencies in a changing world. We argue for development of a unified emergency scale to facilitate communication and understanding. This scale will inform local communities with regional community-specific information, and will be extendable for further use by professional responders. Research in progress elicited 15 dimensions of an emergency using a Delphi-like process and then ranked the dimensions by importance utilizing Thurstone's Law of Comparative Judgment. Contributions of this paper are to highlight the need for an unequivocal, unified scale and further its development.
KW - Emergency management
KW - Paired comparisons
KW - Public safety scales
KW - Thurstone's Law of Comparative Judgment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84905668567&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84905668567&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84905668567
SN - 9789054874171
T3 - Intelligent Human Computer Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM 2007 Academic Proceedings Papers
SP - 411
EP - 418
BT - Intelligent Human Computer Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM 2007 Academic Proceedings Papers
Y2 - 13 May 2007 through 16 May 2007
ER -