Core Dataset Workshop
July 22, 2008

During July 2008, ACIA hosted a workshop to formulate a “core dataset” for the indexing of incident records. The archive, described above, will be acquiring, indexing and scanning incident records, and the goal of the workshop is to define a record structure for indexing the attributes of incident records. Examples of attributes might include:

• A unique identifier for the incident involved;
• The date and time of the document;
• The location associated with the document;
• Classifications of the persons referenced in the document;
• Names of the persons referenced in the document;
• Type of document; and
• Time relationship to the incident (before, during, after…).

A preliminary concept plan is to identify classes of attributes. The first are specific to a type of document or record:

• Personal statements or interview tapes or transcripts;
• Official incident management records;
• News articles and videos; and
• Reports and studies.

There would be a common set of attributes that would be consistent across each category of record or document.

The Symposium on Critical Incident Analysis
October 1, 2, 3

During October 2008, ACIA will host a symposium designed to refine a definition of critical incident analysis, and to ground that definition in the theory and scholarship of a set of disciplines that and commonly engaged in the interdisciplinary study of critical incidents.

The symposium will be co-sponsored by the Regenhard Center which will provide some of the financial support.

The symposium will be organized in three sessions. The first session will focus on the definition of critical incident analysis. The second session will focus on disciplinary and systematic interdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies for critical incident analysis. The third will session will examine the working version of the core dataset for the critical incident archive, and assess how the systematic collection of information about critical incidents could support both disciplinary and interdisciplinary research and analysis.