Evaluation of the level of collaboration in a regional crisis exercise setting - the use of Community of Inquiry

Planning for regional security and crisis management could be supported by well performed exercises. These exercises should be evaluated from different views in order to investigate the participants learning from the exercise. Since the evaluation seldom rest upon established learning theories it will be difficult to evaluate if the exercise will lead to the stated goals. Authorities in the counties of Jämtland and Västernorrland, intend to implement such exercise spring, 2016. The Theme for the exercise is “Flooding” “Höga flöden” based on a scenario describing extremely high rainfall which could affect hydroelectric dams. The authorities should act and collaborate based on local crisis plans and how the scenario changes over time. We intend to use the Community of inquiry model when evaluating how the participants act, reflect and learn from the exercise. The Community of inquiry (CoI) model consists of three elements: social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence. The model assumes that learning occurs within the Community through the interaction of this three core elements. We intend to use a validated version of a survey instrument connected to the CoI model (Arbaugh et al, 2008). Hence, the aim of this paper is to propose an evaluation method to evaluate levels of communities in regional exercises.