MU to start alert system
Published Nov. 9, 2007
A text message, e-mail and telephone emergency alert system will be online by Dec. 1, Information Technology Director Terry Robb said.
Robb said the university will test the system in late November, but the exact test date and whether it will be administered to a targeted group or on a mass scale have not been determined.
Robb said university administration is still developing a set of guidelines to determine how the system will react to certain situations, such as the type of message that will be sent out to registered devices in an alert.
Once implemented, top university officials would activate the system and contact the National Notification Network, also known as 3n, who would send an alert.
Chris Koukola, assistant to the chancellor for university affairs, said the authority to authorize an alert would be flexible among administrative officials to promote responsiveness in a crisis or potentially dangerous event.
"Given what we have seen at other colleges, we wanted an enhanced ability to contact faculty, staff and students if we had an emergency," Koukola said.
IT is responsible for providing 3n with data from students, staff and faculty to ensure that an alert would be delivered to registered communication devices. These devices would include e-mail, cell phones, BlackBerry and text messaging devices.
Koukola said her office is developing a list of messages that could be used by different university officials to be sent out over the alert system for specific incidents. She said the messages could be altered at the officials' discretion to include additional instructions or information to those alerted.
Koukola said a list of messages should be developed by next week.
Koukola said her office is working with the Department of Information Technology to inform students, staff and faculty about the system and encourage them to register their information with the system.
A mass e-mail was sent on Thursday to students, staff and faculty by Chancellor Brady Deaton and urged them to update information to the system and assured that the information would not be used for anything other than emergency notifications.
Missouri Students Association Vice President Andrew Cafourek said MSA supports the university's notification system and that the safety of personal information is also a primary concern.
"We wanted to make sure we aren't getting any unnecessary communications from the university," he said.