Reputation Management System for Fostering Trust in Collaborative and Cohesive Disaster Management

Abstract

The best management of a disaster requires knowledge, skills and other resources not only for relief and rehabilitation but also for recovery and mitigation of its effects. These multifaceted goals cannot be achieved by a single organization and require collaborative efforts in an agile manner. Blind trust cannot be applied while selecting collaborators/team members/partners therefore good reputation of a collaborator is mandatory. Currently, various Information and Communication Technology based artifacts, for collaborative disaster management, have been developed; however, they do not employ trust and reputation as their key factor. In this paper, a framework of reputation based trust management system is proposed for the support of disaster management. The key features of framework are Meta model, Reputation Indicator Matrix and Computational algorithm, deployed using Service Oriented Architecture. To evaluate the efficacy of the artifact, a prototype is implemented. Furthermore, an industrial survey is carried out to get the feedback on the proposed framework. The results support that the proposed reputation management system provides significant support in collaborative disaster management by assisting in agile and smart decision making in all phases of disaster management cycle.