"This document has been created to provide a broad overview of big data usage in humanitarian organisations and general guidance on how organisations can incorporate it into operations. It describes big data and its role within the humanitarian sector, offers a categorisation of the large variety of ... big data types, highlights benefits and risks of incorporating big data into response, identifies policy and ethical considerations for the organisation, and provides example materials organisations can use when starting the process of incorporating big data. The goal is to create dialogue and generate structure in the conversation among decision makers, data scientists, and volunteers and technical communities." (Executive summary) more

"Twitter is the primary social media platform discussed in this Think Brief. However, the use of hashtags has spread to other social media platforms, including Sina Weibo, Facebook, Google+ and Diaspora. As a result, the ideas behind hashtag standardization may have a much larger sphere of influence ... than just this one platform. Three hashtag standards are encouraged and discussed: early standardization of the disaster name (e.g., #Fay), how to report non-emergency needs (e.g., #PublicRep) and requesting emergency assistance (e.g., #911US). As well as standardizing hashtags, emergency response agencies should encourage the public to enable Global Positioning System (GPS) when tweeting during an emergency. This will provide highly detailed information to facilitate response." (Page 2) more