Boise State U Turns to Mobile App for Campus Safety

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 05/04/16

Boise State University has adopted a new mobile app in an effort to improve campus security for 25,000 students, faculty and staff.

The university selected Rave Guardian, from Rave Mobile Safety, which allows users to create a virtual safety network of friends, family, roommates and campus safety personnel. Users can then initiate safety timer sessions, which allow network members to monitor status updates, location and notifications from assigned check-ins. During Safety timer sessions, if time expires without a check-in or if the user hits an in-app panic button at any time, campus security representatives are notified.

Other features of the app include the ability to send anonymous tips, multi-media messaging, opt-in safety profiles for faster emergency response and institution-specific branding.

"Rave Guardian turns your cell phone into a mobile personalized blue light phone on steroids," said Elliot Cox, security analyst at Boise State University, in a prepared statement. "Because it does everything that an emergency blue light phone does now, and that allows the user to do touch-of-a-button calls to Boise State campus security, as well as to the Ada County Dispatch Center."