The Multi-Dimensional Nature of Emergency Communications Management

Someone has been paying attention for the past couple of years, and this new article from EDUCAUSE Review is either a must-read or a must-bookmark:

Within an incredibly short period—perhaps less than twenty-four months—the need for emergency preparedness has risen to a higher level of urgency than at any other time in the history of academe. Large or small, public or private, higher education institutions are seriously considering the dual problems of notification and communications management when potentially life-threatening events confront a campus environment. . . . On the one hand, there seems to be a growing tendency toward violence; on the other hand, an increasingly rich collection of notification, communications, and management tools can assist in mitigating the impact of these situations. . . . [t]he rich variety of tools and solutions leads to two important questions for colleges and universities to consider. First, how can these technologies be best leveraged to benefit emergency notification services? And second, what are the implications of all of these options on emergency communications management policies and operational procedures? We define an emergency notification system (ENS) as a specific technical service designed to achieve mass notification in the event of an incident demanding such an action. Emergency communications management (ECM) refers to the policies, procedures, and operations acting in concert with an ENS.

To help institutions answer these two questions and also to provide insight into the basic parameters of emergency communications in higher education today, the Steering Committee of the EDUCAUSE Net@EDU Converged Communications Working Group (CCWG)1 (http://www.educause.edu/ConvergedCommunicationsWorkingGroup/13524) recently sent a short survey to a group of carefully selected colleges and universities.2 The objective was to discover the nature of the work being accomplished at these institutions. The responses to this survey also helped to inform two case studies, prepared by the CCWG Steering Committee, on ENS and ECM solutions at Virginia Tech and the University of Iowa.

Tools: Should You Twitter? Some Mini-Case Studies

Here in the SCUP office, we have found instant messaging to be an amazing useful and core communications tool. We are also experimenting a bit with Twitter, and also with Yammer (which has a little more security on it). That's why we found this article to be interesting:

As of October 2008, Twitter was used by more than 3 million people according to Twittr, a search engine for Twitter accounts.

***

[and its used for academic planning:] “It’s become a very tight little community of members who bounce ideas off each other, share fun things, use each other for any sort of questions,” says Petersen. At Penn State, all that connectivity through Twitter eventually led to a daylong professional development event last August. The new Learning Design Summer Camp was almost entirely designed by this community.

***

Twitter also has a small but growing following among the higher education web and communication community, as indicated by the early results of an online survey I administrated in October 2008 about different web services targeted to this community. When asked about their communication channels of choice to receive professional development information, 19 percent of the 540 responders (all professionals working in higher education), named Twitter as one.

Do Emergency Text Messaging Systems Put Students in More Danger?

Authors John Bambenek and Agnieszka Klus, writing in EDUCAUSE Quarterly, say that "The rush to use text messaging as an emergency notification system fails to consider the weaknesses and potential hazards of this solution." They examine the circumstances around a number of real-life emergency situations and conclude: "The question remains, can text messaging systems protect a campus population? Or do they put people at more risk? Any emergency communication system must be reliable, with controlled access and fast delivery. Not only does text messaging fall short in all three areas, recent campus shooting incidents demonstrate that these systems would not have helped during the emergencies, only supporting supplemental crowd control afterwards. . . . We can only conclude that the use of text messaging tools is woefully insufficient and dangerous for use in emergencies.

Beyond the Bond Campaign

Subtitle: "Public relations efforts should continue after a bond passes. Once the votes are counted the real work begins." Read it here. It's all too easy to assume that since you know what's getting done and what's not, and why, that everyone else does, too, including the voters. Not so! "Communication is key, according to Jennifer Aries, district director of public information and marketing for the Chabot-Las Positas Community College District in California's East Bay. "The work really begins the day after the bond passes. Both internal and external communications are critical, so it's important to have a communication plan in place that will serve both audiences." She points out that faculty, staff, and students are emotionally invested in an institution and the future results of the bond measure, making it important to keep them informed of all that is happening around them."

Text Messaging as Emergency Communication Superstar? Nt so gr8.

A contrary perspective from Dewitt Latimer:

All over campus, students have their heads bent over mobile devices, their fingers working furiously on miniature keypads. Students today use SMS (Short Message Service) messaging for everything from arranging study groups to discussing campus politics. SMS messaging—or “texting”—is performed before class, after class, and oftentimes even during class, making it the most ubiquitous form of student communication.

The popularity of SMS messaging among the college-age demographic, as well as its perceived speed of delivery and ease of use, have led some campus planners to view SMS messaging as the superstar player in an emergency notification strategy. But rapid is not the same as reliable, and ease of use doesn’t equate with robust. And as evidenced by recent campus emergency events—at Virginia Tech, Delaware State University, LSU, and Northern Illinois University—delayed messaging in an emergency isn't merely inconvenient; it has the potential to turn an already bad situation much worse.

Best Practices in Emergency Communications

A nice article by Doug Gale in Campus Technology magazine, surveying various practices and available technologies. Sample paragraph:

Sirens cannot convey a lot of information. Even two or three different siren codes are enough to confuse almost everyone. They are, however, cheap (typically $50,000 per siren) and reliable. They get people to turn on their cell phones and check their e-mail. Some of the more sophisticated systems can also broadcast a brief audio message as well as a siren tone. Some siren vendors are: American Signal Corp., ATI Systems, Federal Signal, Hormann America, Klaxon, Sentry Siren, and Whelen.