Abstract:

We face the increased number of various disasters nowadays. Therefore, crisis management is in focus of many countries’ agendas. Experience of respectable disaster management institutions all around the world shows that number and variety of disasters increase regardless of their cause, whether being natural or anthropogenic in their essence. The human victims and material destruction following disasters, require a serious scientific engagement. Although a considerable effort has been done in trying to diminish these terrible consequences, a further research is expected. Three underpinning pillars for coping with disasters and been expected to work in synergy, are government authorities, institutions in charge of disasters and scientific community. Institutions dealing with disasters (emergency services, fire departments, search and rescue agencies, military units, etc.) are supposed to have well educated and skilled employees, capable of making decisions and acting with the least possible negative consequences. Actions they run require specific skills and knowledge. This leads us to the curriculum content of study program appropriate for crisis management. Different approaches are available for development of such a curriculum. This paper proposes a metamodeling approach, using which the disciplines of the crisis management curriculum have been identified and unique crisis management metamodel has been developed. Based upon the international disaster database, a set of disaster types is defined. Once disaster occurs, a crisis management is activated. This leads us to the crisis management life cycle phases: preparation, response, and recovery. These phases form another set. The Cartesian product of two mentioned sets is formed giving all possible ordered pairs (disaster type, crisis management phase). Thus, we get three pairs for each disaster type, e.g. (flood, preparation), (flood, response), and (flood, recovery). These three pairs containing the three phases of crisis management, cover the knowledge needed in coping with specific disaster. Out of chosen pairs we come up with specific courses as parts of crisis management curriculum. Each country faces specific occasional disasters. Using ordered pairs related to these disasters, a national wide crisis management curriculum could be framed. Besides the courses related to disaster types, another group of courses should cover the knowledge needed for crisis management life cycle. To come up with that knowledge, a finite automata method is used, explaining the states that individuals, organizations, or countries can face during the crisis. The application of Cartesian product and finite automata methods result in overall metamodel of crisis management curriculum and serve as a basis for study curses development. The meaning of metamodel is twofold. Firstly, the data perspective represents the repository of data generated during the curriculum development process, and secondly, the process perspective determining all the activities run in curriculum development. Both perspectives are appropriate for further development of learning outcomes.

Keywords:

Curriculum, crisis management, metamodel, method, knowledge.