Teaching humanitarian logistics with the Disaster Response Game

Effective disaster response requires time-critical decisions to get personnel and supplies to the right places as quickly as possible. Such operations are complicated by the need for coordination among multiple stakeholders. In this teaching brief, we describe a serious online game for humanitarian logistics courses called the “Disaster Response Game.” The game provides students with context, challenges, and command seat experience with simulated life-and-death consequences. Our development effort includes the creation of a flexible digital platform for delivering game-style simulations for undergraduate and graduate education as well as response training within large enterprises. The system has instructional design interfaces for creating a wide range of disaster scenarios including, but not limited to, earthquakes, floods, pandemics, storms, and wildfires. As proof of concept, we built a tropical cyclone scenario and tested the corresponding multiplayer Disaster Response Game with students and subject matter experts. Students found it valuable to be assigned different roles that required collaboration, found the experience to be realistic, and were motivated to minimize casualties as best as they could with available resources. Subject matter experts also found the game to be sound in its instructional design. We seek a community of interested instructors to help develop more scenarios.