rave alert emergency notification system at csu pat burns colorado state university checo september...

Rave Alert Emergency Notification System at CSU

Pat BurnsColorado State UniversityCHECOSeptember 18, 2007

Sep. 18, 2007 CHECO - ENS at CSU 2

Theme

“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” – Mark Twain

“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.” – Mark Twain


Findings after Virginia Tech

Email notification Takes over an hour to complete delivery Does not reach many students on campus Does not reach students in transit

University of Central Florida study and CSU student focus groups Students prefer to be notified by text messages Notification is almost immediate


Parameters

Criteria Require text messages (SMS – Short Message

Service) injected directly into the cellular network Must handle > 10,000/min

No sendmail into the cellular network Spam filtering Long delays otherwise, too

Flexibility to respond to changing situations What

Rave Alert, a hosted service


Approach

Purely opt-in programs seem to attract 25-30% participation

CSU wants to “own the customer” to increase participation We want to be the ones collecting emergency

contact information, including cellular number and other emergency contact information


Implementation

Therefore, we collect cellular numbers from our users, and store them in our SIS, along with other emergency contact information

We are doing uploads into the Rave Alert hosted service nightly, from our databases at CSU

SMS notification of registration from Rave “turned off”

Now, Rave Alert can accommodate only a single number per user Multiple numbers in development


Participation

Mandatory participation for devices purchased by the University Database pre-load

Opt-in program for students, we collect cell phone numbers for students as follows Now, via a self-subscription, opt-in web page Also during pre-registration (hope to obtain > 70%

penetration)


Policy – On the Subscription Web Page System will be used only for emergency life

and safety situations, and testing once per semester “Trust, but verify” – essential

Will not be used for other communications, even “official University communications” Students regard this as spam Very strong negative reaction from student focus

groups


Sending an Alert

Administrative “single sign in” to Rave web page, grants permissions to a small number of senders

Currently, about half a dozen Me, Jose Valdes (Assoc. Director of Telecom) Two co-chairs of our Emergency Management

Team, and their administrative assistants


Rave Alert Features

6¢ per individual SMS message Anticipate sending no more than 20k per semester

($1,200), except in the event of an emergency when cost will not be an issue

To receive, must be enabled in the cellular program, with an associated cost

Does have groups that we will define, and feed via email (included in annual subscription cost) Warnings most important Also meals, athletics, etc.

Notifications from BlackBoard CE6


Rave Notification (Resolved at 9:38 PM)From: [email protected] on behalf ofVladimir Vuksan [[email protected]]Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 7:21 PMTo: [email protected]: [Notifications] SMS message delays and undelivered messages

We are currently experiencing connectivity issues connecting to our SMS aggregator Verisign mQube. As a result SMS messages are being delayed or are undelivered. We have opened a case with Verisign and will update you once the issue is resolved. Thank you for you patience.--Vladimir VuksanDirector of Technical OperationsRave Wirelesshttp://www.ravewireless.com


Emergency Communication Strategy“All of the Above” EMT assembles, and triggers:

Text messages Bulk email

We use our internal system, as it gets to virtually 100% of constituents, rather than just those with a mobile device who have subscribed to the service

Campus web page Emergency announcements – 491-SNOW R-911 Pre-set conference calls to principals CSU Police with bull horns


Questions

Are most welcome.

rave alert emergency notification system at csu pat burns colorado state university checo september...

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