Mission Statement for SCEC Earthquake Response Content Management Site (ERCMS)

The period immediately following a large earthquake presents SCEC scientists with a temporary window of opportunity to collect observational data essential to furthering our understanding of earthquake phenomena.  To provide an effective, well-coordinated scientific response, it is vital that members of the SCEC community be able to quickly assess

• where and what data is being gathered in the field 
•  what information is known about the earthquake
•  what resources are needed to fulfill SCEC priorities

The purpose of the SCEC ERCMS is to provide the SCEC community with this critical information by providing these functionalities.

• States scientific priorities made by the SCEC researchers and planners.
• Shows what field deployments and measurements are being made in the field via a map interface
•  Stores results of analysis done by SCEC researchers and links from other sites that contain relevant information such as earthquake.usgs.gov and scsn.org
• Forms a basis of communication between coordinators, field crews, and analysts where by each group is able to show status and requests for resources.

The SCEC ERCMS is based on open source technology (Drupal), and uses multiple forms of communication – web, email, sms texting, and rss feeds.  It is integrated with the SCEC LDAP server, providing immediate accessibility to the community without the need for new accounts.  The SCEC ERCMS also has multiple hosting sites to ensure 24/7 availability should the main site go offline.  The main site is hosted at USC with backup sites at Caltech (SCEDC) and Stanford.

The website continues to be developed, and further feedback is welcome.