In 2010, Haiti was struck by the worst natural disaster in 200 years. The efforts of the first responders were aided by a microblogging and mapping system – Ushahidi – that was deployed for facilitating online volunteer participation in the crisis effort. In this paper, we examine the tagging behavior of the volunteers with a particular focus on collaborative tagging accuracy. Based on the uncertainty reduction theory, this study investigates the effects of contextual and collaborative information processing on information quality and collaborative tagging accuracy under varying temporal conditions. We also suggest implications for volunteers to better manage the response to social crises by reducing uncertainty.
Poster number: 28