Book Description

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Mitigation Strategy presents 'A Vision for Safer Communities in the Future, ' looking toward the year 2010 as a time when 'All new structures, including critical facilities and infrastructure, will be built to national multi-hazard standards incorporated into building codes that have been adopted and enforced by municipalities, counties, and States.' The Strategy not only articulates FEMA's mitigation vision and goals, but defines strategic objectives for reaching those goals. In the area of applied research and technology transfer, FEMA and its partners are directed to 'evaluate state of the art technologies for the dissemination of research results to the user community.' A companion objective in the area of public awareness, training and education requires 'an assessment of the most effective use of information technologies such as the Internet and other media to disseminate information on natural hazards and mitigation. . . .' This paper is the outgrowth of a search for effective ways of meeting those objectives. This paper explores the feasiblity of encouraging practicing architects and engineers to incorporate research findings in the design of new structures by providing training on-demand, in the form of Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS), via the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW).