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The end of the Cold War has increased US involvement in crises that stop short of war, including humanitarian assistance (HA), disaster relief (DR), and peacekeeping (PK) operations. These crises are often multi-dimensional, with security, political, economic, environmental, and humanitarian dimensions. Developing a comprehensive solution to these crises requires collaborative planning, coordination, and execution by multiple US government (USG) agencies, international organizations (IOs), and/or coalition partners.
Many cultural problems must be overcome before these disparate communities can truly integrate planning and execution, but technology can help improve opportunities for, and the speed of, collaboration and information sharing. Web portals - sites that combine content with collaboration tools and serve as an entry point into information from multiple related sites - constitute a promising solution to this challenge. Vertical portals focus on a specific domain of interest and can promote virtual (distributed) communities of people with similar interests.
This paper will discuss the need for, and characteristics of, a proposed Crisis Planning and Response (CPR) portal that will provide access to information relevant to HA, DR, PK, and other contingencies while customizing information for individual users based on user profiles.
Interested, globally dispersed communities can use the proposed portal for information sharing and dissemination, planning, and training. In short, by providing a common virtual meeting place, it will promote a fuller understanding of each community's culture.
A robust CPR portal will serve as an information resource, support collaboration among multiple distributed users, and provide just-in-time training and education ranging from passive to active to experiential via access to simulation and role-playing. Ultimately, the CPR portal will allow us to contribute more fully to the world by being more responsive to issues facing us as a nation.
