2017 UseIT: Communications Work Group

Olivia J. Dorencz, Robert Hernandez, Amelia Midgley, Resherle Verna, Kevin F. Qualls, Kevin Rolón-Domena, Rafael G. Cervantes, Alyssa R. Oda, Jason Ballmann, Thomas H. Jordan, Jozi K. Pearson, & Gabriela R. Noriega

Published August 3, 2017, SCEC Contribution #7407, 2017 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #308

Representatives from each of the project teams in the 2017 Undergraduate Studies in Earthquake Information Technology (USEIT) internship cohort came together to create the Communications Work Group (CWG). The aim of CWG is to communicate earthquake science and information on the USEIT internship to the Public. This work group is made up of undergrads with backgrounds in geology, geophysics, computer science, and engineering; none have any training in media communications or editing software. Scientists often rely on the media to convey their research to the public. This year, the USEIT interns are making an effort to communicate earthquake science themselves. The members of this group bring their understanding of earthquake science to the media table and find innovative ways to communicate what the USEIT interns are doing, why it’s important, and how they are doing it all. The CWG was able to utilize the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) social media pages; this includes Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The posts consisted of information about the USEIT interns and how each group was working on different deliverables under one Grand Challenge. Interviews were conducted to communicate to the public what it is like to be a USEIT intern, and what their responsibilities in the internship include. To teach the public more about visualization software the interns have developed, the CWG created a tutorial for SCEC Visual Display of Objects (SCEC-VDO). SCEC-VDO is an interactive tool to display earthquake models and create videos of earthquake scenarios. This year USEIT interns have refined SCEC-VDO to make its debut release to the public. The tutorial is a step-by-step, user friendly guide on how to create videos of earthquake models or scenarios, and loading the earthquake models. The CWG wrote an article about the entire USEIT experience. The article emphasizes the importance of the work being done by SCEC interns, and illustrates how earthquake research is key to understanding the risks they pose. The CWG goal is to appropriately shed light to, and communicate with the public on what USEIT interns do and why earthquake science research is imperative to southern California and other earthquake prone areas.

Key Words
useit, communications, social media, video, media, outreach, twitter, facebook, youtube

Citation
Dorencz, O. J., Hernandez, R., Midgley, A., Verna, R., Qualls, K. F., Rolón-Domena, K., Cervantes, R. G., Oda, A. R., Ballmann, J., Jordan, T. H., Pearson, J. K., & Noriega, G. R. (2017, 08). 2017 UseIT: Communications Work Group. Poster Presentation at 2017 SCEC Annual Meeting.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Communication, Education, and Outreach (CEO)