College rolls out notification system
Oct. 5 , 2007
On the heels of last spring’s tragedy at Virginia Tech, members of LaGrange College’s Safety and Security Committee felt a heightened sense of urgency to complete their objective of evaluating and choosing a mass notification system for the College.
“Obviously, the incident at Virginia Tech sped things up quite a bit,” said Instructional and Information Technology Director James Blackwood. “We had already been considering our options prior to the event, but with that as something in the back our minds, it really got us moving and pushed us toward rapid implementation.”
Enter e2Campus, a new system that, Blackwood said, “provides us a mechanism to disseminate a short message to a large group of people in a short amount of time.”
“It will be used for emergencies or other important notifications related to the on-campus audience.”
According to Blackwood, the system will employ three primary methods to reach its users: text messages, e-mail and a Web bulletin board.
Users can choose to utilize all three notification methods, or just pick one or two.
“We have some who’ve signed up for e-mail use only,” Blackwood said.
Regardless of the notification method chosen, Blackwood explained the important thing to remember is that it is the user’s responsibility to opt in to the system in order to receive emergency notifications.
“We evaluated four different systems, and the biggest factor that pushed us toward e2Campus is the fact that it is an opt-in system,” Blackwood said. “One of our guiding principles was that the system needs to be easily maintained because, much like fire alarms and sprinkler systems, this is a system that has to work when it’s needed.”
Another attribute of e2Campus that pleased members of the Safety and Security Committee is that the system is not hosted on campus.
“It’s totally remotely hosted, so we don’t have any software or hardware running on campus,” Blackwood said. “That addresses another of our evaluation points, which was redundancy. The e2Campus system doesn’t rely on our campus infrastructure to be up.”
And while Blackwood is encouraging everyone to sign up for the system, he said that he does want to point out there may be a small charge incurred for the reception of e2Campus messages if the user doesn’t have a SMS plan through his cell phone provider.
Students, faculty and staff who have not yet opted in to e2Campus are encouraged to do so by visiting the College’s Emergency Preparedness site.
