Reflecting on the readings and speakers of the entire semester, in what ways do you see IST, SRA and Penn State students as perfectly well-suited to address issues arising with the integration of technologies into crisis response?
In my opinion, I do believe that Penn State SRA and IST students are equipped to a degree but I believe that SRA students who complete this class, SRA 397A: Crisis Informatics will have the upper hand over other PSU Students. However, I do not think IST students have the skills or knowledge to help address issues arising with the integration of technologies into crisis response. I feel this way because IST students are thinking of coding and that nonsense and SRA students I feel have a more critical view of looking at emergencies. But yet without SRA 397A I do not think SRA students, IST students, even Penn State students would understand the importance of the class.
I see SRA students leading the way because of the class and any other IST student who took the course. We have read documents from the United Nations and other federal agencies within the United States to get an inside look at crisis response. We first got very frustrated with why these people do not see what is effective and why they are so afraid of using new technology like Ushahidi and how effective they were during the Haitian Earthquake Response.
Most Penn State students if asked wouldn’t know what NGO means, or that the United Nations is a major player in emergency response after natural disasters and/or man-made disasters like (political violence). I just feel that for someone to have a full or semi understanding of issues arising with the integration of technologies into crisis response they need to read articles and listen to the speakers we had and/or take SRA 397A or take a class like it somewhere else.
You brought up some great points that I didn’t really even think of. The part were your brought up the fact that Information Science and Technology students will not be as prepared as much as SRA students for the field of disaster relief is very true. In my opinion, Information Science and Technology students’ main focus is on coding, programming and other technical computer things. Although this is good for a lot of things, it isn’t that relevant to solving a crisis. On the other hand, Security and Risk Analysis students are more prepared for crisis response because we are taught things in all types of the field such as terrorism and other aspects. Furthermore, Security and Risk Analysis students are more prepared after we take the Crisis Informatics class. This class is more than ideal for the topic of disaster relief. This course has given us an over view of everything that we may come by in the field. We learned everything from terrorist attacks to hurricane relief. Even more so, we got lectured by top guys in the field of crisis response ranging from professionals from the United Nations and Crisis Mapping. In my opinion this course could not have prepared us better for this field that some of us are going into. We learned so many things that almost none of us knew prior to taking this class. Which I know sounds bad but in my experience some of the college course that I have taken, I haven’t learned as much as I feel that I should have. So this class was a great experience for me, and I am sure most of the students in this class feel the same way. All in all I am really happy that I took this class and I look forward to doing more research in the field.
ReplyDeleteEvan, thank God that this is the last comment I will ever have to post on your blog wall. It has been a long hard ride in the class and it is finally going to come to a close. But to begin, I agree with you that IST students can be useful in this field, but for the first steps of the process such as designing code and making sure all the technical aspects work correctly. It is then what I believe to be the SRA student’s job to take these designs and technologies and apply them to real life situations such as that in disaster response and humanitarian efforts.
ReplyDeleteI also think that you are correct about the theory that most Penn State students and even students from other schools would not even know where to start with disaster response. This class is very unique and what I have heard from professor Tapia, we are the only school that has anything like it. It is the simple fact that because of that we students who are in the SRA program at Penn State have a jump on the rest of the competition that are maybe trying to get into that field after graduation.
Evan, I feel that this has been once again a great blog post and that you tried very hard on this one. You had some excellent points that needed voiced and you did this the right way. Now that the posts are over and only the final project remains all I can really say is let’s get this sucker over with and ace it. All that’s left to really do is get all of the work in and boss the presentation. Let’s finish this class right and call it a semester shall we buddy. Overall, great final post good job buddy.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteI feel like its necessary to disagree with you. As for your argument that SRA students are going to lead the way, I feel that it’s not exactly true. Both majors have their merits and downfalls, and in SRA 397a we were all given the same documents to read and had the same presenters. We weren’t separated by majors, and we weren’t treated differently; only that treatment, I feel, would really support your argument.
I also feel that you underestimate the intelligence level of the students at Penn State. I know that I am not the poster child for Penn State’s academics, but I knew what an NGO was before I even came to Penn State. I also knew that the United Nations has a lot to do with disaster response and recovery because their name is plastered across almost every crisis that has come up in the world; if not the U.N. directly, it’s an outfit of the U.N. such as the UN OCHA.
While I disagree on those points, I do agree that SRA students might be more well equipped to handle emergency response and crisis management in general, IST students are the ones providing the SRA majors with the technological tools to be effective at emergency response. Overall, I also agree with you that without this class, most of us wouldn’t have given crisis and emergency response a second thought regarding its technologies and its complications, and that this class has enlightened us on the importance of such things. Without this class I don’t think any of us would have fully or even partially understood how much technology impacts crisis responses.