Virginia College Deploys Anonymous Incident Reporting Tool

  • By Tim Sohn
  • 10/05/12

A Virginia community college has implemented a new Web-based incident reporting platform through which students, faculty, and visitors can anonymously report concerns such as bullying, hazing, and cheating.

Rappahannock Community College in Saluda has selected TIPS, a platform developed by Awareity. TIPS, which stands for threat assessment, incident management, and prevention services, allows Rappahannock faculty, students, parents, and others to report campus incident and location online at rappahannock.edu/forms/report-a-threat/. Those reporting incidents can choose as an option to make their reports anonymously. Alerts are then forwarded to the college threat assessment team so the appropriate action can be taken.

TIPS also generates real-time documentation that can be used for audits, accreditations, and analysis. Types of available reports, such as prevention, receipt, acknowledgment, response, historic, and compliance, can be stored in the Awareness & Accountability Vault. According to Awareity, TIPS meets reporting requirements for the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Police and Campus Crime Statistics Act, the federal law that requires colleges and universities to document crime on or around campuses.

"TIPS empowers anyone on campus and within the community to come forward and anonymously share information regarding concerning behaviors with us," said vice president for administration Kim McManus. "Now we can make sure this information is communicated to the appropriate personnel and investigated immediately for a proactive response."

Rappahannock Community College is part of the 23-school Virginia Community College System. The system also consists of Blue Ridge Community College, Central Virginia Community College, Dabney S. Lancaster Community College, Danville Community College, Eastern Shore Community College, Germanna Community College, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, John Tyler Community College, Lord Fairfax Community College, Mountain Empire Community College, New River Community College, Northern Virginia Community College, Patrick Henry Community College, Paul D. Camp Community College, Piedmont Virginia Community College, Southside Virginia Community College, Southwest Virginia Community College, Thomas Nelson Community College, Tidewater Community College, Virginia Highlands Community College, Virginia Western Community College, and Wytheville Community College. These sit on 40 campuses, and total enrollment is almost 287,000.

For more information about Awareity, visit awareity.com, or tipsprevent.com.

About the Author

Tim Sohn is a 10-year veteran of the news business, having served in capacities from reporter to editor-in-chief of a variety of publications including Web sites, daily and weekly newspapers, consumer and trade magazines, and wire services. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @editortim.

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