Campuses Implement Speech Systems to Improve Safety
Send Word Now, a provider of on-demand alerting and response services, has been working with dozens of educational institutions across the nation to increase campus safety in time for classes to start this week.
As a response to many incidents of campus violence, including the Virginia Tech shootings last spring, many colleges and universities are putting a new focus on leveraging technology to reach students promptly—with the communication devices and modes that are most familiar to them.
The SWN Alert Service uses multiple channels of communication, including text messaging and voice messaging, to reach students, faculty and staff within minutes. Each individual can provide the best ways to contact them, including mobile phones, BlackBerry devices, Treos, other PDAs, dorm or home phones, email, and pagers. If the message does not reach the recipient on the first device specified, the alert will be sent to the next device listed.
Steve Morash, emergency planning and response manager at Boston University, states, "It is important that we communicate with students in the way they are most comfortable, and that will reach them most quickly. Our students and their parents expect Boston University to provide a caring and safe learning environment. Send Word Now allows us a capability to do that."
James J. Flatley, director of public safety at the University of Delaware, adds, "The University of Delaware's new partnership with Send Word Now is an important upgrade to UD's emergency response system, increasing our capabilities to disseminate important information quickly. We anticipate that our use of Send Word Now will provide us with a comprehensive electronic messaging system to meet the needs of our University community. "
The two-way alert and response service that Send Word Now is providing to many schools is also designed to enable real-time response, with messages such as I'm OK or Send help, along with specific location information. Schools also have a complete and accurate audit trail of each message used frequently to conduct "lessons learned" and improve processes.
Campus police, security personnel, or administrators can initiate an alert from the Web, phone, email, BlackBerry, or internal information system application, and they can verify and track whether a response was made. In addition to emergency alerts, students, faculty, and staff can receive rapid communications during situations such as power outages, weather emergencies, or other time-sensitive situations, as well as to respond to alerts if required.
The following is a partial list of educational institutions that have implemented SWN Alert Service. These universities will all have SWN Alert Service in place as students begin the 2007/2008 school year:
• Boston University;
• New York University;
• Robert Morris University;
• Rockefeller University;
• Southern Methodist University;
• University of California, San Francisco;
• University of Central Florida; and
• University of Delaware.