Imagine what would happen if a world-wide epidemic, such as the bird flu, reached the United States. Decisions would need to be made very quickly to contain the disease, inoculate and quarantine the effected populations, and discern possible solutions. In order to make these life and death decisions one would need to rely on various reports coming from health institutes, Washington DC, and the media. One way to prepare for such a disastrous scenario is to train with desktop simulations. Enter T.E.S.T.

The Tabletop Exercise System Technology (T.E.S.T.) system is an idea that was developed by the FSU Center for Disaster Risk Policy to better assist in facilitating and capturing lessons learned from table top exercises.

T.E.S.T. facilitates users through a scenario exercise that includes simulated e-mails, video, and other appropriate documents to drive their actions. T.E.S.T. then asks the participants leading questions based on the information provided and provides the participants an area to respond. Responses are recorded to brief other participants and consolidated into a written transcript or report.

The design of the T.E.S.T. system also allows multiple people in a table group to use a single computer. This allows the group to engage and brainstorm their input without the use of a table group facilitator, and then enter their group answer into the system.

In fiscal year 2005 T.E.S.T. was licensed to Titan Corporation (now L3-Titan) to help develop disaster response training exercises for Louisiana and Missouri. T.E.S.T. has also been used through its one time use license structure to prepare scores of federal, state, and local governmental officials in such diverse disaster scenarios as avian flu, bioterrorism attacks, hurricane response, food borne contamination, etc.

For more information please see http://cdrp.fsu.edu/test.cfm