“Incident Command System in disaster management” white paper assignment:

The idea of the white paper assignment is to give you the experience of integrating multiple science perspectives or science and practice. Your paper should accomplish the following:

1. Executive summary (no more than 1 page)
This section should be a very short summary of the content of the white paper. It should require no special training to read and should convey the basics of your larger work.

2. Paper(about 10 pages):
? Research part(about 3 pages):
Summary of “state of science” for the Incident Command System.
? Provide a review of some body of scientific literature associated with the Incident Command System. The section should describe the insights from a body of knowledge. It should include references to publish peer reviewed materials. It should broadly describe theory, empirical research, consensus, conflict, etc.

? Practice part(about 3 pages):
State of Practice or science for the place you think you can make a meaningful contribution through integrating new ideas.
? This section should discuss the policies, processes, and state of practice associated with the Incident Command System. The paper should answer the question how is it currently being done.

? Analysis and conclusion part(about 4 pages):
? Based on what you have observed this draw some conclusion about the similarities and differences in these two approaches (research part and practice part). What is similar? What is different? Where can gains be made? What do we need to know more about? Outline a specific strategic view for how the insights could inform each other and develop a set of actions/ tactics to facilitate that integration.

And these 2 references are very very very important, use it.

Buck, D. A., Trainor, J. E., & Aguirre, B. E. (2006). A critical evaluation of the incident command system and NIMS. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 3(3).

Moynihan, D. P. (2008). Combining structural forms in the search for policy tools: Incident command systems in US crisis management. Governance,21(2), 205-229.