Development of a “Disaster Management Literacy Hub” for Collecting, Creating, and Transmitting Disaster Management Content to Increase Disaster Management Literacy

Abstract

In this project, a “Disaster Management Literacy Hub” (DMLH) has been developed for collecting, creating, and transmitting various disaster management content over the Internet. The first screen of the DMLH lists disaster management content on tiles to allow users easily find relevant disaster management content using a keyword retrieval function. A user who registers an account can post disaster management content, create a first screen that is customized using the “favorite function,” and compile different disaster management content using the “binder function.” In addition to the “relay (hub) function” for disaster management content, a “creation function” was also implemented, such as the “message function” for posting short messages of approximately 200 letters and an image, and the “quiz creation function” for measuring the effects of disaster management literacy. In the course of modifying the prototype Disaster Management Literacy Hub, the system was evaluated by university student users in July 2016, approximately one year after the fully-fledged operation came into effect in August 2015. The results yielded the following findings: 1) the DMLH is meaningful because by using specific keywords, users retrieved items that had been difficult to find by means of general Internet search sites; 2) statistically significant improvement was shown for 15 disaster management literacy items in the evaluation; the DMLH leads to a proposal to create effective disaster management literacy improvement because students recognized three disaster management literacy categories: cases of disasters and disaster management, responses of familiar agents such as themselves and people to one, and responses of agents in the environment, including local communities and governments.