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Best Practices in Emergency Communications
5/9/2008
The Florida study considered the advantages and disadvantages, as well as cost, of a number of emergency alert systems, including sirens, reverse and broadcast 911 systems, Weather Alert and FM radio schemes, and Internet-based notification. Their conclusion: There is no single alert system that meets the all the needs of a single campus, let alone the needs of diverse campuses.
So What Have Some Real Campuses Done in Practice?
As might be expected, Virginia Tech has implemented a comprehensive emergency alert system that includes a warning siren system, voice or text message to mobile devices such as cell phones (VT Alert), e-mails to all or portions of the university community, emergency announcements on Virginia Tech's main Web page, and messages sent through the departmental reporting chain. They are also in the process of adding emergency alert capabilities to the cable TV system that serves their residence halls and are planning to make use of several TV channels to better inform the broader Blacksburg community and off-campus students.
VT Alert is based upon technology from 3n (National Notification Network), which has been selected by a number of other institutions, including the University of Miami, Rochester Institute of Technology, Pepperdine University, and the University of Alaska-Anchorage.
It should be noted that Virginia Tech began planning for emergencies long before the 2007 shootings. Their May 2005 Emergency Response Plan still forms the basis for the campus' emergency response.
According to Judy Lilly and Pat Rogers, both in Virginia Tech's Communications and Network Services unit, the student participation rate in VT Alert, which is heavily promoted on campus, is 64 percent. Brian Nichols, chief IT security and policy officer at Louisiana State University, has observed that 40 percent to 45 percent of LSU's population have signed up for a similar program at LSU. To increase participation in VT Alert, Virginia Tech is considering making it a requirement for annual renewal of a network ID to explicitly either opt-in or opt-out of VT Alert.
With multiple notification systems, coordinating alerts can be a challenge. Lilly and Rogers said that the Information Technology unit will be turning on an emergency alert portal this fall that will allow University Police and University Relations, the offices authorized to issue alerts, to access all of the campus emergency alert systems through a single front end.
An Old Fashioned Siren and Crying Wolf
Ironically, the inability (and perhaps undesirability) of getting everyone to regularly monitor our various high tech devices has led to an increased interest a much older technology--a very loud siren.
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