# Coproduction as an Approach to Technology-Mediated Citizen Participation in Emergency Management
## 3 Design Case Study: The Participative Roles of Citizens in EM
### Identifying the Different Roles Citizens Can Play in EM Coproduction  
Our studies suggest that EMAs will be open to move towards a more participative EM process as far as their concerns are considered. As a first step to ideate technologies that could improve citizen coproduction in EM, the different profiles making up the dispersed crowd need to be conceptualized to understand the variety roles citizens can play when coproducing [18]. As posited by [PERSON], there are no panacea solutions [14]; there are no universal participation structures that apply everywhere and, consequently, each case has to be studied to understand how the different agents can, or will, be willing to participate. With this purpose we applied a participatory design process involving different EMAs in the identification of useful citizen skills and capabilities, which we aggregate under the concept of role. To start with, and within the context of an industrial project aimed at deploying mobile computing applications for citizens as well as an interface for the operation center [42], we run several participatory design sessions with the Valencia Police. Valencia is a very popular touristic city in the east coast of Spain with 1.5 million residents and whose region usually suffers massive summer wildfires and autumn floods. In the design sessions, participation alternatives were discussed through real examples managed by the police that helped the design team to conceptualize a number of potential roles citizens could play and for which specific social computing technologies could be used. Roles are only used as way to abstract the capabilities citizens could contribute with and to ideate scenarios where technology could help to integrate such capabilities with the EMAs tools. Each person can assume one or more roles during a crisis situation or can have different roles in different situations. Five roles were identified in these sessions:  
* _Citizens_ receive information from the authorities and, therefore, we all are citizens. * _Sensors_ are all of the citizens who send data or information to the EMAs and, consequently, any citizen becomes a sensor whenever she contacts the EMA or uses social networks to post information about a critical situation. For instance, people sending tweets on a disaster or contacting the call center are _Sensors_. Whether, or under which circumstances, the organization considers these data reliable or useful is something that has to be determined in each case since as discussed in the findings of our empirical study, citizen generated content might not be reliable or precise enough to be directly used by the EMA workers. * _Trusted sensors_ are citizens that the EMA has identified as people whose data can be directly processed because they are reliable. They include those _Sensors_ who can be trusted whether because the operation center has information on them (such as retired workers, volunteers or citizens who have informed in other occasions) or because they have built a reputation on social networks and therefore they can be trusted. The concept of _Trusted Sensors_ is not new and is already implemented through the VOST groups around the world. * _Nodes_ are citizens that can also process data and provide more elaborate and precise information; for instance, they can evaluate the damages or the kind of assistance required. According to the experts, to become a _Node_ you need to have accredited experience in the domain. For instance, if the operation center knows you are a citizen who has participated in drills for a specific kind of disaster (e.g. nuclear risks) and you were trained to evaluate damages, you can be granted this level. * _Agents_ can execute actions under the supervision of the EMA, for instance, they could lead an evacuation process. Some citizens can act as _Agents_, particularly if they can receive directions from the EM workers, for which mobile computing tools might be very convenient.