Emergency Notification Systems and emergency notification

On Friday, the Chronicle featured an article (Emergency Alerts via Facebook and MySpace are New Ways to Reach Students, 8/22/08) on how some campuses are looking for ways to use Facebook (FB) and MySpace as tools for transmitting emergency information. On the surface, this seems like a good idea. It would seem that almost every student nowadays is plugged into FB or MySpace, and young twenty-somethings are increasingly finding news about people, friends, and family with the social networking sites (myself being no exception).

Governor Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia has signed several General Assembly bills that arose from the Virginia Tech tragedy of a year ago "that will improve protections for our citizens and treatment for people with mental illness" according to a press release. Among the signed legisation is Senate Bill 538 that imposes new requirements for emergency notifications:

The following summary is from http://oja.wi.gov/section.asp?linkid=1147&locid=97:

The Governor's Task Force on Campus Safety is focused on ensuring the safety of college campuses across Wisconsin. At the direction of Governor Jim Doyle, the Task Force is reviewing and compiling criteria for developing best practices from universities, colleges, and other higher education institutions in Wisconsin and across the nation. This information will be submitted to the governor and will serve as a resource for college administrators, law enforcement officers, and emergency preparedness officials.

The Task Force delivered an Interim Report to Governor Doyle on August 15. A final report will be published on November 1st.   

The College of William and Mary is the latest Virginia institution to formalize its plans for an emergency notification system supported by a vendor. The college selected NTI’s Connect-ED® service to provide rapid communication to the campus community.

According to a campus press release:

Each of the College’s students, faculty or staff members can store up to six contact numbers and two e-mail addresses. During an emergency, designated members of the College’s Emergency Response Team will be able to access the system – remotely by phone or from their computer – and issue an alert simultaneously to the entire campus community. The system has the capacity to send voice messages to recipients’ landlines, cell phones and e-mail addresses and to send text messages to their cell phones, email addresses, TTY/TDD devices for the hearing impaired and other text receiving devices.

Virginia Tech has announced its selection today of 3n (National Notification Network) as its choice for a new emergency notification system. The University of Miami also announced on May 22nd the purchase of the 3n InstaCom system to automate emergency communications with their students, faculty, and staff. "The new emergency notification system, along with existing communications vehicles long used by the university, will form the basis of “VT Alerts,” a fully integrated and coordinated emergency communications program maintained by Virginia Tech’s Office of University Relations," according to a Virginia Tech press release issued today.

More excerpts from the press release: