
Murray TuroffNew Jersey Institute of Technology | NJIT · Department of Information Systems
Murray Turoff
PhD Physics 1965 Brandeis University
About
299
Publications
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Introduction
Murray Turoff currently works at the Department of Information Systems, New Jersey Institute of Technology. Murray does research in Computer and Society, Human-computer Interaction and Information Systems (Business Informatics). Their current project is 'I am working on Emergency Management Education and also i am working on dynamic scenario modeling for planning and forecasting'.
See http://library.njit.edu/archives/cccc-materials/
In 1975 NSF awarded an unusually research effort to Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff where we built the online conference system EIES.
See http://library.njit.edu/archives/cccc-materials/
for most of the research reports generated by the Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center.
Publications
Publications (299)
Social Media (SM) contain a wealth of information that could improve the situational awareness of Emergency Managers during a crisis, but many barriers stand in the way. These include information overload, making it impossible to deal with the flood of raw posts, and lack of trust in unverified crowdsourced data. The purpose of this project is to b...
In response to a request by the guest editors, we have set down our thoughts regarding the evolution of Delphi, beginning with our immersion in the subject in the late 1960s and concluding with some rumination about its future. Our focus is on the changing roles of Delphi. Most importantly, with the profound impact of the internet on organizational...
This is a collection of the early research material behind the creation of the EIES social network system created in 1975 and a collection of the research generated from this system until the late 1900
Environmental forces influencing the future of higher education in the U.S. threaten to undermine the desirable role of faculty as arbiters of academic quality. For online learning to live up to its potential, institutional policies can return academic authority to faculty over degree programs in all modes and support the importance of education in...
Role abandonment once was considered unlikely by research scientists; however emergency management officials have experienced catastrophic events that counter prior assumptions. Event types such as deluges and pandemics surface as scenarios supporting one set of examples. The authors explore a different angle, focusing on individual practitioners i...
Information systems (IS) in emergency management (EM) support situational awareness and agility during a disaster so that professionals do not only need to follow rigid pre-defined plans that might be unsuitable in the unfolding situation. To use IS effectively, managers need an understanding of the capabilities of these systems; this can be achiev...
you can download almost eveything on my njit website. this includes all the papers, other material listed for the courses i used to teach and other items like the delphi book, etc.
During 2015, a survey was completed by 373 respondents representing academics and practitioners in Emergency Management. They were asked to evaluate the courses for a Master's degree in Emergency Management with a concentration in Information Systems. This paper reviews the very significant qualitative comments they made about each of the various c...
The development of a dynamic scenario illustrating a new method for creating dynamic scenarios in the example of the interactions among infrastructures in a major disaster situation. A paper on this model appears in a recent issue of the Futures Journal. It is too recent to upload that paper. Link below is for publications before 2007 (frozen when...
Trends over the past decades, when coupled with recent disaster events, call into serious question whether our typical reactions to natural disasters will be sufficient for what we can expect in the future. This paper summarizes current events and scientific understanding of our planet to provide insights of the authors into what should be the basi...
Trends over the past decades, when coupled with recent disaster events, call into serious question whether our typical reactions to natural disasters will be sufficient for what we can expect in the future. This paper summarizes current events and scientific understanding of our planet to provide insights of the authors into what should be the basi...
The delphi method BOOK is avalable on my website at
http://web.njit.edu/~turoff
clicking on the book gives a table of contents and
the ability to download any papers or chapters.
there is also a download of the whole book as well.
This article suggests a scenario-based approach to properly managing risks during the lifetime of a project. Our proposal aims at giving managers a structured process to predicting the impact of the occurrence of multiple risks that can affect project performance. This is a product of combining Cross-Impact Analysis (CIA) and Interpretive Structura...
A resilience-focused approach leads organizations to improve the management of disasters through being aware, flexible, trained, and prepared, having committed top managers and staff, and being part of a wider network of stakeholders. Based on the organizational resilience principles identified in the literature, this article analyses the potential...
This paper reviews current work on a model of the cascading effects of Critical Infrastructure failures during disasters. Based upon the contributions of 26 professionals, we have created a reliable model for the interaction among sixteen Critical Infrastructures. An internal Critical Infrastructure model can be used as a core part of a number of l...
Companies work increasingly more on projects as a means of executing organizational decisions. However, too many enterprise projects result in failure. Hence, firms should follow a risk management method that drives their projects toward success. Nevertheless, project managers often deal with risks intuitively. This is partly because they lack the...
This is the first paper to apply a combination of HAZOP and Risk Consequence Matrix plus Cross Impact Analysis (CIA) and Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM) methods for analyzing complex cascading effects inOperational Risk Management in an industrial environment. This combination of methods allow obtain more information than using HAZOP and R...
This is the first paper to apply Cross Impact Analysis (CIA) and Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM) methods for analyzing complex cascading effects in Operational Risk Management in an industrial environment. Its main objective is to improve the understanding of the overall picture of an organization's risks. The paper summarizes the developm...
This paper proposes a Cross Impact Analysis for supporting critical infrastructures risk analysis. This methodology contributes to decision-makers and planners with analytical tools for modeling complex situations. These features are generally useful in emergency management and particularly within the critical infrastructures scope, where complex s...
Curriculum guidelines are presented for Master's level programs that combine core topics from the disciplines of Emergency Management (EM) and Information Systems (IS). Based on responses to an online survey from 111 respondents from 19 countries who were mainly identified through ISCRAM (Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management), all...
Simulation exercises are particularly popular for training in emergency situations. Exercises can vary in their
degree of realism, complexity and level of stress, but they all try to reproduce a scenario of a real emergency so
that each participant simulates the actions carried out for the role they should play. They not only support
effective and...
Role abandonment once was considered unlikely by research scientists; however emergency management officials have experienced catastrophic events that counter prior assumptions. Event types such as deluges and pandemics surface as scenarios supporting one set of examples. We explore a different angle, focusing on individual practitioners including:...
In this paper we analyze how to apply cross-impact modeling for developing collaborative scenarios in Emergency Preparedness. Scenarios can enhance the understanding of emergency teams about the factors which are involved in the definition of an emergency plan and how different actors participate in it. The version of Cross-Impact Analysis describe...
This introduction highlights the diversity of national localities, research methods, case studies,
and topics covered by the papers selected for inclusion in the special issue on Planning and
foresight methodologies in emergency preparedness and management. It then provides a
detailed summary of each study, emphasizing what the editors feel are the...
A conceptual model is developed of the events that can comprise a dynamic cross impact model of performance of a collection of organizations seeking to effectively respond to an emergency or disaster. It might also be used to model a single organization made up of organizational units. This paper provides a concise overview of the literature that s...
The world spends annually between 16 and 23 billion US dollars in disaster assistance. In 2010 an estimated 373 natural disasters occurred, causing 296, 800 victims and affecting more than 207 million people. By 2050 the number of people living in areas especially prone to natural disasters will probably double (from 680 to 1500 million). Communica...
This issue will be devoted to planning and foresight in any phase or meaningful combination of phases of Emergency Preparedness and Management: mitigation, risk assessment, resiliency of organizations, training, detection, preparation, response, recovery, and evaluation. The planning and foresight topic may also focus on a given area such as medica...
The BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has led to a large number of articles in various news sources attempting to report on the reasons for and consequences of this disaster. We use this literature as a basis for exposing the possible systemic problems in BP that would explain this catastrophe and we offer some conclusions as to what designers shou...
This paper reviews crisis literature, identifying factors that most challenge decision makers during extreme events. The objectives are to understand the environment in which the emergency manager is working; isolate factors that hinder the decision maker’s ability to implement optimum solutions; and identify structures that best fit the problem ty...
Since its origins, decision makers have broadly used the Delphi method as a collaborative technique for generating important events and scenarios about what may happen in the future. This is a complex process because of the different interrelations and the potential synergetic effects among the relevant events related to a decision. This fact, alon...
In response to a request by the guest editors, we have set down our thoughts regarding the evolution of Delphi, beginning with our immersion in the subject in the late 1960s and concluding with some rumination about its future. Our focus is on the changing roles of Delphi. Most importantly, with the profound impact of the internet on organizational...
The emphasis in the Delphi literature to date has been on results rather than on methodology and evaluation of design features. The other articles in this chapter do address the latter aspects. Still, quite a number of issues remain unsolved, particularly those concerned with the details of the internal structure of the Delphi. For example
This chapter begins by discussing the nature of large groups and subgroups of crisis experts who are involved in the decision-making
process during a disaster. This is followed by an examination of how to best support these efforts. Subsequently, we describe
design problems inherent in emergency decision support systems, the genesis of such issu...
Emergency situations often require cross-organisational response and planning by groups that are geographically distant from
one another. Increasingly, individuals and these groups are leveraging technology to support a variety of communication and
decision-making needs. This is creating an opportunity for groups, who traditionally worked in face-t...
This paper is a case study of an emergency medical dispatch system that describes its operations and difficulties Emergency Management in Andalusia is the responsibility of the Internal Affairs Authority that operates in each province a Coordination Center that receives Emergency Calls and in cases where there is a medical emergency, passes the inf...
Continuous auditing has the potential to transform the existing audit paradigm from periodic reviews of a few accounting transactions to a continuous review of all transactions which thereby could vastly strengthen an organisation’s risk management and business processes. Although some continuous auditing implementations are occurring now, their a...
Emergency preparedness, planning, and response suffer from shortcomings that impede the potential for effectiveness. In this article, we provide an overview of Emergency Preparedness and Management that is based upon our research, including insights into the shortcomings of current practices, a discussion of relevant theories (e.g., High Reliabilit...
This paper reviews crisis literature, identifying factors that most challenge decision makers during extreme events. The objectives are to understand the environment in which the emergency manager is working; isolate factors that hinder the decision maker’s ability to implement optimum solutions; and identify structures that best fit the problem ty...
In the 21 st century, rapid changes of our society necessitate continuous review and practice of emergency plans. Traditional face-to-face (FtF) interactions to make emergency plans and train responders seem insufficient. The virtual team (VT), a new team form allowing dynamic recruitment of experts from global extent and conduction of teamwork whe...
Scenarios are frequently used in Emergency Planning and Preparedness. These scenarios are developed based on the hypothesis of occurrence or not of significant events. This is a complex process because of the interrelations between events. This fact, along with the uncertainty about the occurrence or non-occurrence of the events, makes the scenario...
A strategic issue is a major core issue that can rarely be resolved by any sort of fully objective approach. It is usually about the future and the alternative options that exist to "improve" the future. This article explores the critical areas of concern in strategic considerations illustrated by the topic of Emergency Preparedness and Management.
In Emergency Management and Business Continuity Planning, scenarios are a widely used tool. Existing scenario creation systems allow distributed groups to create scenarios together but have limited collaboration support. This study developed and evaluated a solution to provide various types of collaboration support around a knowledge structure at t...
This paper talks about the requirements of computer-mediated communication (CMC) for group support. An overview of CMC's historical evolution is presented. Advantages of CMC include opportunity for group to exhibit "collective intelligence", asynchronous support of communication process, self-tailoring of communication structures by users and group...
In this paper we focus on preference and decision data gathered during a computer-supported information market game in which 35 students participated during seven consecutive trading sessions. The participants' individual preferences on the market shares are collected to calculate a collective preference ranking using the Borda social choice method...
Online Social Networking Sites (SNS) are becoming extremely popular and can be employed in a variety of contexts. They permit the establishment of global relationships that are domain related or can be based on some general need shared by the participants. Emergency domain related websites, each with their own stated mission, are becoming widesprea...
Emergency preparedness, planning, and response suffer from shortcomings that impede the potential for effectiveness. In this article, we provide an overview of Emergency Preparedness and Management that is based upon our research, including insights into the shortcomings of current practices, a discussion of relevant theories (e.g., High Reliabilit...
Emergencies today seem larger, more complex, and unique than those of the past. Responding to them requires flexibility and creativity not easily achieved. The threat-rigidity thesis proposed by Staw, Sandelands, and Dutton proposes that response to an environmental threat is often one of constriction of control and restriction of information that...
Thirty four professionals who are part of a community of practice in the field of health related emergency response management
provided information about the sources of information that they currently use the most, as well as their unmet information
needs, and the kinds of information systems tools they would like to have. This professional communi...
In response to a request by the guest editors, we have set down our thoughts regarding the
evolution of Delphi, beginning with our immersion in the subject in the late 1960s and
concluding with some rumination about its future. Our focus is on the changing roles of Delphi.
Most importantly, with the profound impact of the internet on organizational...
This paper presents a discussion of emerging pedagogical, technical and regulatory issues in asynchronous learning. Based on discussions with several faculty members with more than 6 years of e-teaching experience, as well as administrators and business advisory board members, the paper presents several ongoing experiments and discusses the authors...
In a crisis situation, critical success factors include good preparedness, the availability of trustworthy information and reliable people, and the responders' ability to improvise with the available, functioning tools. Wikis can be used as collaborative group support systems to support these activities, especially for communities of practice that...
Thirty four professionals who are part of a community of practice in the field of health related emergency response management provided information about the sources of information that they currently use the most, as well as their unmet information needs, and the kinds of information systems tools they would like to have. This professional communi...
Emergency situations occur unpredictably and cause individuals and organizations to shift their focus and attention immediately to deal with the situation. When disasters become large scale, all the limitations resulting from a lack of integration and collaboration among all the involved organizations begin to be exposed and further compound the ne...
Emergency situations occur unpredictably and cause individuals and organizations to shift their focus and attention immediately
to deal with the situation. When disasters become large scale, all the limitations resulting from a lack of integration and
collaboration among all the involved organizations begin to be exposed and further compound the ne...
When emergency situations cross borders, or when newly formed groups need to work together, decision making can suffer from threat rigidity and pertinent information can be bypassed. We describe a Dynamic Delphi system under development that can create and sustain a group "voice" for an emergency response Community of Practice (CoP). We further des...
Designed properly, distance education classes can be at least as effective and, in some ways, even more effective than face-to-face courses. The tools and technologies used for distance education courses facilitate learning opportunities not possible in the face-to-face classroom. Distance programs are accelerating changes that are challenging stud...
Learning is enhanced by the physical and social technologies typically used in distance education. Students in distance programs typically have access to tools that allow them to repeat lectures and interact with their fellow students and faculty. Students in all classes, including face-to-face and blended courses, benefit from having similar tools...
What is happening to higher education? There is a search for increasing the effectiveness of learning and expanding educational opportunities by using a combination of information technology and distance education. Teaching with technology takes time. There is the challenge of choosing equipment, redesigning courses, learning software, and building...
The concept of the journal is reexamined in the light of current computer-communications technology. Four forms of electronic journals on the Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES) are described as divergent examples of potential journal forms that could become prominent in the future. These are (1) an informal newsletter, (2) an unrefereed...
Web-based discussion forums are key tools in online education environments. Extant studies have shown that active participation helps drive the success of these forums. The integrated participation evaluation tool (iPET) is a Web-based application combining social network analysis and visualization to enable distance learning instructors and studen...
The role of human-computer interaction (HCI) at each phase of the emergency management process is discussed. An emergency brings together a team of people representing different organizations, resources and roles. The extended team needs to work together effectively and in such a way that the team members support each others' objectives even when t...
‘Decision support systems (DSS)’ is a well-used term but one that is often used glibly without care for the type of the decision supported and the level of support the system offers. We begin by discussing a classification of DSS according to these two dimensions, i.e., decision type and the level of support. For the former, we use the Cynefin fram...
This minitrack deals with any aspect of the analysis, design, development, deployment, operation, or evaluation of emergency response systems (ERS). In particular, it seeks to encourage research on three areas that are pertinent to ERS: (i) tools, functionality, and/or interface the system that provide to human users involved with emergency and cri...
There exists an acute need for an unambiguous objectively measurable emergency scale to facilitate communication and mutual understanding of the nature of any emergency, by the public and government agencies. A review of existing emergency scales and their potential indicates no one scale can accurately describe all emergencies. Our research solici...
Dynamic community crisis response teams form quickly at the onset of a crisis providing assistance until external specialty resources arrive. FEMA recommends individual preparedness for up to 72 hours. Sustaining a community for at least 72 hours often falls to those who live or work in the community. Local community responders (i.e. small grassroo...
This paper provides a task structure design for collaborative scenario elicitation. Task structure design is part of this effort to design a new Collaborative Scenario Creation (CSC) system. The complexity of the scenario creation process hinders participants, especially novice participants, from prudently designing scenarios. Research in Group Dec...
Achieving interoperable communication across governmental agencies and jurisdictions remains a challenge and is simply taking time to implement. Initiatives to support agency interoperability continue. However, community responders remain in need of two-way device quick response tactics. SMS text-messaging is one viable interoperable communication...
In an extreme event or major disaster, very often there are both alternative actions that might be considered and far more requests for actions than can be executed immediately. The relative desirability of each option for action could be a collaborative expression of a significant number of emergency managers and experts trying to manage the most...
Training is an important means by which to learn computing skills and gain knowledge in new technologies. However, frequently training does not achieve its desired result, and the type of training–help can also play an important part. The role of three different forms of training (offline, online, and visual online) in promoting or hindering learni...
There exists an acute need for an unambiguous objectively measurable emergency scale to facilitate communication and mutual understanding of the nature of any emergency, by the public and government agencies. A review of existing emergency scales and their potential indicates no one scale can accurately describe all emergencies. Our research solici...