New UNL Alert multiple messaging system implemented

Students, faculty and staff at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln now will receive emergency messages wherever they want to get them. The new UNL Alert system was launched today, and the university community is signing up for the message delivery process.

"The new UNL Alert system has new services that will let the university send personalized emergency messages to computers, land-line telephones and cell phones with text and voice," said Christine Jackson, UNL vice chancellor for business and finance. "Our students, faculty and staff can choose which devices they want messages sent to, and even prioritize which are alerted first. It's a powerful, customizable emergency communication tool for our university community."

The service will require UNL students, faculty and staff to enter a secure site to sign in their contact phone numbers and text and e-mail addresses. There is no cost to users for the service. It is through a Tennessee-based company, W.A.R.N. (Wide Area Rapid Notification Inc.), which was selected this summer after an extensive proposal and interview process. The new service is only for use by registered UNL students, faculty and staff, but the original UNL Alert desktop application is still available to UNL visitors or others interested. (In the original system, computer users download an application to their computers with a client service that goes into action on the user's computer desktop when an alert is delivered.)

Jackson said the new UNL Alert system incorporates many delivery methods and that the system will be used in imminent life and safety threats only. She said the signup process is voluntary but 100 percent involvement is hoped for among faculty, staff and students.

More information and signup and download links are at http://emergency.unl.edu.

Efforts at improving campus safety and emergency communication have intensified nationwide since the April Virginia Tech tragedy and enhanced text and voice communications have been targeted as a way to warn or alert large, mobile populations -- like those on campuses -- about emergencies. In April, the desktop UNL Alert application was distributed to computer users to initiate a campuswide warning system, and prior to that, campuswide e-mails and Web postings have been used to communicate with people on campus about emergencies. The new technologies added will be multiple phones, including cellular phones, and text-messaging, pagers, personal digital assistants and two-way radios. The university continues to look at other emergency and safety measures, in addition to communication tools, as ways to improve security.

"Ultimately the goal is to provide the best means of communication to do our best to make campus as safe as possible," Jackson said, "Emergency managers know that effective emergency communication is accomplished with multiple and overlapping, but consistent, messages. No one method will reach all recipients, but if we send redundant messages with multiple delivery methods, the chance for receiving the communication is improved greatly. That's what helps save lives."

CONTACT: Christine Jackson, Vice Chancellor, Business and Finance, (402) 472-4455