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Individual Essay (Option #1) Understanding Threats, Vulnerabilities, and

Consequences

Introduction

You are to analyze threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences for an organization you are very

familiar with; a major purpose of the exercise is to uncover weaknesses that need to be

corrected. You are to INTERVIEW (preferably in person, but by phone or other means if

necessary) people to gather the information, and then write up your results. NO RESEARCH in

published sources is required to complete this assignment. NOTE: If you are re-taking this

course, you must choose a different organization.

Use the attached template file for the assignment; the template helps you complete all parts of

the assignment. For more details, see the specifications below. The assignment is due in

accordance with the due date in the syllabus.

If you have any questions about the assignment or the grading criteria, post your question in the

Discussion → Individual Essay → Individual Essay – Q&A (Option #1 or #2) topic folder for this

assignment. Do NOT send an e-mail unless it is a personal question as other students may

have similar questions. All students should check regularly for any Q&A. If there is a question of

significant importance, I will also post something to the classroom’s Home Page.

Here you will find information on these topics:

• Academic Integrity

• Learning Objectives

• Content Specifications

• Document Specifications and Instructions

• Statement Attesting to Original Work

Academic Integrity

With this assignment, as with all others, you must adhere to UMGC policies regarding academic

integrity. Avoid plagiarism, both intentional and inadvertent, and provide accurate

documentation and attribution of the work of others.

UMGC's policy recommends "carefully following accepted scholarly practices. Notes taken for

papers and research projects should accurately record sources of material to be cited, quoted,

paraphrased or summarized, and papers and research projects should acknowledge these

sources in references." (Policy 150.25 - Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism).

You must also include in your submitted documents a statement attesting that you are

submitting work that is original and that complies with standards for academic honesty. See

Version 2 Update: annotates allowance of using APA 6th and/or 7th edition formatting… updated pages have

“red star” in upper right corner and highlighted red text

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below for specifications. The attestation statement is also included in the template for this

assignment.

Learning Objectives

Through successful completion of this assignment, you will:

• Gain insights into threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences.

• Consider the topic from disaster and business crisis perspectives.

• Use interviews to gather information.

• Speculate on difficulties on getting people to think about disasters and management crises.

Content Specifications

CAUTION: Follow the instructions! Use the attached template!

Definitions:

• Threats/threat agents: events or persons that potentially may cause unwanted

consequences or impacts.

• Vulnerabilities: controls or safeguards that are either weak or missing; also, a condition or

circumstance that permit a threat to happen. Caution: Be careful of the distinction between

vulnerability and "being vulnerable." For example, a water system is vulnerable to physical

or cyber attacks by malicious actors, but it is simply the asset that is at risk. The

vulnerabilities would be the weak safeguards for the water system.

In Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative (National Academy of Sciences, 2012),

vulnerability is further defined as,

the potential for harm to the community and relates to physical assets (building design

and strength), social capital (community structure, trust, and family networks), and

political access (ability to get government help and affect policies and decisions).

Vulnerability also refers to how sensitive a population may be to a hazard or to

disruptions caused by the hazard. The sensitivity can affect the ability of these

populations to be resilient to disasters. Vulnerability is projected by the presence and

effectiveness of measures taken to avoid or reduce the impact of the hazard through

physical or structural methods (e.g., levees, floodwalls, or disaster-resistant

construction) and through nonstructural actions (e.g., relocation, temporary

evacuation, land-use zoning, building codes, insurance, forecasts, and early warning

systems), or construction-related and non-construction-related methods. (p. 27)

• Consequences: damage or harm resulting from the failure of controls to prevent a threat

from exploiting a vulnerability.

Step 1: Select an organization you are familiar with and that will allow you to interview at least 2

other people who are also familiar with it. This organization may be where you work, a business

or community group (e.g., your auto repair shop, your doctor's office, your child's school, your

homeowner’s association), or local government. NOTE: If you have taken this course before,

you must select a different organization as your subject.

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Step 2: Interview at least 2 people to brainstorm with you. If you cannot get them together at the

same time, that is okay. It’s fine if you need to keep the names of the interview subjects or

specific organization anonymous at their request or for the sake of confidentiality, but please

use pseudonyms for easy reference.

First, identify at least 5 assets of the organization that are at risk; that is, harm to one or more of

the assets would impact the organization’s ability to function normally. Be sure to consider both

tangible and intangible assets.

Second, identify at least 20 threats/threat agents, along with the associated vulnerabilities and

potential consequences faced over the next 2-5 years. For threats, think about what would

cause significant harm. But be realistic; for example, if the organization is located in Miami, a

blizzard is not likely.

Use both of these perspectives:

A. Probable disasters or catastrophes arising from natural, technological, or human causes.

B. Probable disruptive business or management crises (usually arising from operations,

personnel, strategy, or financial issues).

For example:

Table 1

Disasters / Catastrophes

Threats Vulnerabilities Consequences

Earthquake

Lack of structural hardening Furniture not properly braced Location near known fault line

Building damage or collapse Injury to or death of occupants

Table 2

Disruptive Business or Management Crises

Threats Vulnerabilities Consequences

Aging workforce about to retire

HR department not inclined to change

Loss of institutional knowledge Lack of staff to handle workload

Fraud

Incompetent auditors Culture not speaking up about problems

Financial loss Reputation becomes negative

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You must have a TOTAL of 20 threats across the 2 tables: for example, 12 threats in the

Disasters table and 8 threats in the Business Crises table. Be sure that the information is clear

and easily understandable.

Step 3: Then discuss with your brainstorming team the obstacles to getting people to:

• Recognize potential disasters and business disruptions.

• Take actions to mitigate disasters and crises.

Step 4: Write your report. The report must include the following sections, using the template

provided:

• Describe the organization you selected and briefly explain why you chose it.

• Describe the people you interviewed and why you selected them. (If they would prefer to

be anonymous, you may identify them by title and function; for example, assistant vice

president at a branch bank office.)

• List assets at risk.

• List the threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences that came out of the brainstorming and

any other research you did. Use the table format shown above. One table should be for

disasters / catastrophes and the other table for disruptive business crises.

Note: You are the subject-matter expert for the brainstorming, and you are responsible for

editing the information in your final paper. If the people you interviewed mix up threats and

consequences (for example), put the information in the correct places. Do not simply accept

verbatim what your brainstorming team said.

• Analyze the vulnerabilities and consequences in light of an all-hazards management

approach.

• Discuss issues with and obstacles to getting people to recognize potential disasters and

crises and mitigate them.

• Explain what insights you gained from doing this assignment and how you might apply

them.

References

Make sure to use proper APA 6th and/or 7th edition guidelines for citations and references of

sources you use to develop Tables 1 and 2. No personal communication/interview is included in

your reference list; instead, parenthetically cite the communicator's name, the phrase "personal

communication," and the date of the communication in your main text only. Do not cite personal

communications in the tables. There are two formats associated with personal communication:

• Narrative in-text citation: M. Kotzian (personal communication, May 13, 2020)

• Parenthetical in-text citation: (M.Kotzian, personal communication, May 13, 2020)

Include references, as appropriate, to support the sections written under Step 3.

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Document Specifications and Instructions

Fill out the attached template for the assignment.

Put your name on the top of the first page. Do not use a title page, an abstract, or a table of

contents. If you cite any references, follow the latest APA 6th and/or 7th edition guidelines; the

template has a section for references.

Paragraphs should form a logical sequence. Your sentences should be written clearly and

succinctly and should also form a logical sequence. Use single-spacing, with double spacing

between paragraphs.

The length should be approximately 1700-2000 words (approximately 6 pages double-spaced)

including the two template tables. NOTE: Quality of the information you provide is far more

important than length.

Finally, you must also incorporate on a separate page at the end of the document a statement

attesting to original work; it is included in the template. See the following section for the full

statement.

The document must be a Microsoft Word .doc or docx file or a rich text format (.rtf) file. Other file

formats are not acceptable.

1. The assignment is due by the end of Week 5, June 23rd

2. Label your assignment with your LastNameFirstInitial_IE1 (e.g., KotzianM_IE1)

3. Submit your completed Individual Essay Option #1 assignment to your Assignment →

Individual Essay folder.

Grading Rubric

See the separate Individual Essay Grading Rubric (Options #1 & #2) document, which is the

same for Option #1 and Option #2. This assignment is worth 15% of your final overall grade.

Statement Attesting to Original Work

You must also submit the following statement with your personal attestation on a separate page

at the end of the document; this is included in the template:

"This paper, examination, report, or the section thereof for which I have indicated responsibility,

is my own work. Any assistance I received in its preparation is acknowledged within the report

or examination, in accordance with academic practice. For any data, ideas, words, diagrams,

pictures, or other information from any source, quoted or not, I have cited the sources fully and

completely in the text, in endnotes, or in footnotes and bibliographical entries, as required.

Furthermore, I certify that the material was prepared by me specifically for this class and has not

been submitted, in whole or significant part, to any other class in this university or elsewhere, or

used for any purpose other than satisfying the requirements of this class, except that I am

allowed to submit this material to a professional publication, peer reviewed journal, or

professional conference. In adding my name following the word 'Signature', I intend that this

certification will have the same authority and authenticity as a document executed with my

hand-written signature."

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Signature ______________________________ Date ______________