Ad ventures and university procureatio Istitutios

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1 The Multi-Dimesioal Nature of Emergecy Commuicatios Maagemet By E. Michael Stama, Mark Katsouros, ad Richard Hach Withi a icredibly short period perhaps less tha twety-four moths the eed for emergecy preparedess has rise to a higher level of urgecy tha at ay other time i the history of academe. Large or small, public or private, higher educatio istitutios are seriously cosiderig the dual problems of otificatio ad commuicatios maagemet whe potetially life-threateig evets cofrot a campus eviromet. E. Michael Stama is the Peyto Aderso Professor for Iformatio Techology at Maco State College. Mark Katsouros is Director of Telecommuicatio & Network Services at the Uiversity of Iowa. Richard Hach is Associate Director of Network Admiistratio, Special Projects ad Iitiatives, at Virgiia Tech. Illustratio by Hak Osua, E. Michael Stama, Mark Katsouros, ad Richard Hach Jauary/February 2009 Educause review 49

2 EDUCAUSE Coverged Commuicatios Workig Group Steerig Committee Douglas Carlso, New York Uiversity Tamara Closs, Uiversity of Texas at Austi Richard Hach, Virgiia Tech Kurt J. Jeschke, Pesylvaia State Uiversity Bill Johso, Oklahoma State Regets for Higher Educatio James A. Jokl (Co-Chair), Uiversity of Virgiia Mark Katsouros (Co-Chair), Uiversity of Iowa Holly Kig, Northwester Uiversity Joh Nichols, Virgiia Tech E. Michael Stama, Maco State College Steve H. Updegrove, Pesylvaia State Uiversity Robert Voderohe (Chair), Uiversity of Chicago Tom Zeller, Idiaa Uiversity Wedy Wige (Staff Liaiso), EDUCAUSE Emergecy preparedess is certaily ot a ew ageda item. Commuicatios about ad procedures for respodig to fires or atural disasters have bee i place for decades. Most istitutios have some sort of campus hotlie that studets ca use i the evet of a assault or other violet crime ad also some sort of callig tree that will commuicate decisios such as a campus closig because of a impedig sowstorm or similar situatio. But the problems associated with ad the opportuities for dealig with emergecy preparedess have evolved sigificatly i recet years, possibly catalyzed by the April 2007 shootig icidet at Virgiia Tech. O the oe had, there seems to be a growig tedecy toward violece; o the other had, a icreasigly rich collectio of otificatio, commuicatios, ad maagemet tools ca assist i mitigatig the impact of these situatios. These tools rage from somethig as simple as exteral sires to solutios ivolvig combiatios of various techologies: a campus website, , ladlie phoes, cell phoes, text messagig, pagig, exteral loudspeakers, digital sigage, a campus CATV system, etwork pop-ups, RSS feeds, istat messagig (IM), fire pael alarms with voice euciatio, ad/or social etworkig websites. This rich variety of tools ad solutios leads to two importat questios for colleges ad uiversities to cosider. First, how ca these techologies be best leveraged to beefit emergecy otificatio services? Ad secod, what are the implicatios of all of these optios o emergecy commuicatios maagemet policies ad operatioal procedures? We defie a emergecy otificatio system (ENS) as a specific techical service desiged to achieve mass otificatio i the evet of a icidet demadig such a actio. Emergecy commuicatios maagemet (ECM) refers to the policies, procedures, ad operatios actig i cocert with a ENS. To help istitutios aswer these two questios ad also to provide isight ito the basic parameters of emergecy commuicatios i higher educatio today, the Steerig Committee of the EDUCAUSE Net@EDU Coverged Commuicatios Workig Group (CCWG) 1 ( CommuicatiosWorkigGroup/13524) recetly set a short survey to a group of carefully selected colleges ad uiversities. 2 The objective was to discover the ature of the work beig accomplished at FIGURE 1. rakig of issues drivig es implemetatio Recet icidet(s) o other campuses Geeral public safety Part of uiversity pla or directio Istitutioal risk or mitigatio thereof Perceived campus eed, buy-i, or priority Istitutioal image All other issues raked at less tha 33% these istitutios. The resposes to this survey also helped to iform two case studies, prepared by the CCWG Steerig Committee, o ENS ad ECM solutios at Virgiia Tech ad the Uiversity of Iowa. Basic Parameters Of the survey respodets, 84 percet reported that they have implemeted sigificat features of the ENS/ECM solutio curretly desiged for their istitutio. But almost all also ote that their efforts are a work i progress, with 88 percet reportig that they will be addig elemets to their solutio i the future. Examples iclude deployig additioal ifrastructure, expadig i-house capabilities to better track cotacts, ad itegratig with other techologies, such as digital sigage, PA systems, alarms, ad televisio. 3 The Drivig Issues The shock of violet icidets such as those at Virgiia Tech ad Norther Illiois Uiversity has clearly accelerated the deploymet of ENS solutios. The two predomiat issues that respodets oted for drivig ENS implemetatio were recet icidets o other campuses ad geeral public safety (see Figure 1). Participatio Despite the curret visibility of the emer gecy preparedess problem, subscriptio rates to otificatio services are ot uiformly high. Oly 40 percet of respodets reported high participatio rates (with high defied as over Percet Educause review Jauary/February 2009

3 three-quarters of the populatio); 48 percet report participatio rates at half or less (see Figure 2). It appears that the most sigificat factor drivig these statistics is a istitutio s policy o the questio of whether specific actio is required from users to iclude or remove their cotact iformatio from otificatio databases. FIGURE 2. subscriptio rates i es services 40% FIGURE 4. deployed es solutios Text messagig (SMS to mobile devices) Fire pael alarms with voice euciatio 12% 48% 50 percet or less subscribe 51 to 75 percet subscribe Over 75 percet subscribe Electroic mail Campus website Ladlie phoes (oe or more) Cell phoes (voice) CATV/Video to residece halls Exteral sires/loudspeakers Digital sigage Overhead pagig (idoors) RSS feeds Social etworkig websites FIGURE 3. subscribers exteral to campus commuities Parets Spouses First respoders Local residets The mass media Govermet Pop-ups Istat messagig (The opt-out vs. opt-i policy implicatios are discussed i more detail below.) A umber of istitutios reported that people who are ot directly part of the campus commuity ca also receive otificatio i the evet of a icidet, with approximately oe-third of respodets reportig that such iformatio ca go to studets parets (see Figure 3). We aticipate that this figure will grow as ENS awareess ad system maturity evolve. Summary of Deployed Solutios The etwork is cetral to virtually every ENS strategy, as are also legacy voice ad cellular solutios. All respodets reported that , textig, ad the campus website are itegral to the otificatio process (see Figure 4). Speculatig o future evolutios ca be iterestig. At ay give time, for example, a large percetage of a etire campus commuity is logged o to oe of may iteral web-based services. What might happe if policies were developed to force pop-up permissio for every oe of these? Such a solutio might drive % 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% Percet additioal dissemiatio of emergecy iformatio. Although word-of-mouth solutios are ot addressed i this article, there is aecdotal evidece that huma commuicatio, though potetially ot fully accurate, is ot oly rapid but also oe of the most effective ways of quickly dissemiatig emergecy iformatio. Case Studies The Virgiia Tech ad the Uiversity of Iowa case studies are based o four icidets. Although all four demostrate the eed for emergecy preparedess, their differig characteristics suggest that multiple strategies ca ad should be cosidered as higher educatio istitutios prepare to respod to potetially life-threateig evets. The two icidets at Virgiia Tech were istataeous i ature, both times ivolvig someoe with a gu. The first, i 2006, origiated ad was resolved completely off campus; the other was the ow-ifamous o-campus shootig that occurred i April I cotrast, the two icidets at the Uiversity of Iowa evolved over time over several hours i the case of a torado i 2006 ad over may days i the case of the floods of Virgiia Tech O Suday, August 20, 2006, the day before the start of a ew semester at Virgiia Tech, William Morva, a prisoer accused of armed robbery, was receivig medical treatmet at Motgomery Couty Regioal Hospital ear the mai campus of the uiversity. At the hospital, Morva overpowered a law eforcemet officer, killed a hospital security guard, ad escaped from the facility, promptig a mahut that would evetually iclude the Virgiia Tech campus ad the tow of Blacksburg. Before beig recaptured, Morva shot ad killed a Motgomery Couty sheriff s deputy ad was falsely reported to be o the Virgiia Tech campus. The icidet prompted the closig of area roads ad the cacellatio of classes o the first day of the fall semester. Studets, faculty, ad staff received otificatios icludig emergecy advisories, evacuatio plas, emergecy updates, road closures, ad cacellatios via campus telephoe, voic , , ad the uiversity s web page. 52 Educause review Jauary/February 2009

4 Impact o Virgiia Tech s Emergecy Notificatio Strategies As early as March 2006, a Messagig Futures Workig Group composed of staff members from Commuicatios Network Services, Systems Support, ad the directory maiteace part of Secure Eterprise Techology Iitiatives had bee meetig to look at the covergece of messagig techologies. Followig the Morva icidet later that year, the uiversity reviewed its emergecy otificatio strategy ad formed aother group to look at campus commuicatio systems. I particular, this group ivestigated the idea of addig a hosted service capable of sedig emergecy alerts or other commuicatios to cellular telephoes ad other wireless devices via short text messages kow as SMS (Short Message Service). Potetial vedors were idetified, ad the first meetigs were coducted i March Workig to evaluate the features ad beefits of providers systems, the team idetified a desirable feature: the ability to sed a otificatio to multiple, cocurret platforms that is, via ladlies, facsimile messages, ad , i additio to short text messages delivered via cellular etworks. A alerts system that could successfully provide the ability for multi-modal commuicatios, icludig the use of true SMS protocol ad IM, became oe of the requiremets. No less importat was a alert system registratio or subscriptio process that was flexible, icludig applicatio program iterfaces (APIs) ad olie methods that would allow the uiversity to load existig directory iformatio directly ito the alert system of the provider. 4 The April 16, 2007, Tragedy A academic year that bega with violece ear Virgiia Tech cocluded with a tragedy o the campus itself. O April 16, 2007, i two related icidets, a guma killed thirty-two studets ad faculty members ad ijured sevetee others, before killig himself. The secod evet, which followed a double homicide i a residece hall, occurred at Norris Hall, a academic ad admiistratio buildig. The Norris Hall icidet was cocluded i about eleve miutes. Approximately twety-seve ambulaces ad fiftee hudred first respoders, represetig fourtee agecies ad five hospitals, respoded to the eed at Virgiia Tech. A key area of emphasis followig the Morva icidet was the provisio of mass otificatios durig a emergecy, alog with subsequet istructios. I respodig to the April 2007 tragedy at Virgiia Tech, emergecy otificatio was provided usig multiple outlets: s broadcast to the Tech commuity mailig list; voic set to campus phoes i offices ad residece halls; recorded messages o the uiversity Weather- Lie/Hotlie; the Virgiia Tech home page ( the Virgiia Tech News website ( the uiversity switchboard; the campus warig sire system; ad public media outlets. Followig the April tragedy, a additioal mass otificatio solutio was deployed o the campus of Virgiia Tech. As discussed above, a short list of providers for this service had bee idetified before April 16, 2007, ad the vedor review process was expedited followig the tragedy. 3 (Natioal Notificatio Network) of Gledale, Califoria, was selected to provide hosted services for sedig emergecy messages via cell phoes, The overall strategy is to fid solutios that focus o mechaisms i which the campus has cotrol of most or all of the techical elemets. Virgiia Tech Burruss Hall ad April 16 Memorial ladlies, s, ad PDAs ad other wireless devices. Summary of Virgiia Tech s Curret Strategy Virgiia Tech s strategy regardig emergecy otificatio ad emergecy commuicatio systems is to utilize multiple methods of cotact ad more tha oe type of alert system to icrease the probability of a successful cotact. Although o sigle otificatio mechaism will reach everyoe, ad although ear real-time otificatio is very difficult to achieve i a large campus eviromet, the overall strategy is to fid solutios that focus o mechaisms i which the campus has cotrol of most or all of the techical elemets. I additio, the strategy aims to provide flexibility i addig subscribers, to itegrate with existig systems, ad to protect persoally idetifiable iformatio. This ability to (a) iitiate a otificatio, (b) verify otificatio delivery, ad (c) gai accurate reportig i coectio with a evet is highly desirable. Future Cosideratios A project to develop a sigle, commo iterface for users of emergecy commuicatios systems bega i May The goal of the project was to devise a web-based applicatio for use by Uiversity Relatios ad the Virgiia Tech Police Departmet to make the uderlyig complexity of the otificatio techologies less apparet. Aother goal was to esure that, eve though the user may be uder duress due to a icidet demadig actio, the emergecy otificatio message could be issued quickly ad correctly. This applicatio was provisioally kow as the VT Alerts Notificatio Cosole, ad idividuals from may 54 Educause review Jauary/February 2009

5 A electroic message board i a virgiia Tech classroom differet areas of the Iformatio Techology departmet were part of the team resposible for the project developmet ad system itegratio. The first phase of this project was made available for use by Uiversity Relatios ad the Police Departmet before classes started o August 25, The iitial Notificatio Cosole product resultig from this project itegrates otificatio message delivery for VT Alerts via mobile, web, ad delivery, collectively kow as VT Alerts: Olie, ad also via classroom message boards, kow as VT Alerts: Classroom (see below). With future fudig, additioal otificatio chaels such as the uiversity s WeatherLie, CATV system, outdoor loudspeaker system, ad voic system will be itegrated. VT Alerts: Classroom, cosistig of electroic message boards istalled i each of the 165 geeral-assigmet classrooms o the Blacksburg campus, was iitiated i May The message boards commuicate iformatio about campus emergecies or other sigificat evets directly ito the classrooms. Stakeholders for this effort iclude the Office of the Provost, Uiversity Facilities (uder the Vice Presidet for Admiistratio), Uiversity Relatios, ad the Virgiia Tech Police Departmet. Commuicatios Network Services provided the staff for the physical istallatio of the sig equipmet ad the related etwork facilities. The system was fully operatioal by August 15, A importat elemet of ay emergecy maagemet strategy is cotiual testig ad appraisal. O Thursday, November 13, 2008, Virgiia Tech used its ENS for a situatio other tha a test. Ufortuately, ot all of these systems fuctioed properly. The systems that are maaged ad maitaied by Virgiia Tech the uiversity home page alert, campus-wide , ad the electroic message boards i classrooms worked well. The 3 mass otificatio system failed to work as expected. Of the three emergecy otificatios set that day, oly some of the VT Alerts subscribers received the first emergecy message. The secod ad third messages were ot delivered by the vedor. 3 cofirmed a system failure o its part, but as of this writig had ot determied the cause of that failure. A subsequet test of the Virgiia Tech emergecy otificatio system coducted o December 8, 2008, idicated that all four commuicatios chaels performed as expected. 5 Uiversity of Iowa O April 13, 2006, Iowa City was struck by a severe storm: large hail ad torados left a path of destructio three ad oe-half miles log ad oe-third of a mile wide. This was the first time a torado had ever hit Iowa City directly two had actually touched dow iside Iowa City. Miraculously, there were o serious ijuries or deaths i the Iowa City area, but the cost to repair all of the buildigs damaged Some of the worst damage from the April 2006 torado, east of Goveror Street o Iowa Aveue (Source: Wikipedia, < Image:April06_torado_damage.jpg>) by the storm has bee estimated at $12 millio. 6 Impact o Iowa s Emergecy Notificatio Strategies This icidet, combied with the availability of suitable emergecy otificatio products, prompted the Uiversity of Iowa to embark o a ENS exploratio project. The uiversity s solutio icluded both a multimodal ENS ad a separate sire tower system. The ENS is built o Blackboard Coect s Coect- ED system, ad the sires were maufactured by Whele Egieerig. At this time, however, these systems are ot itegrated. The sires are geerally utilized to dissemiate serious torado alerts provided by the Natioal Weather Service. The ENS, braded as Hawk Alert, is the heart of the uiversity s emergecy otificatio strategy. The Flood of 2008 The flood of 2008 ivolved most of the rivers i easter Iowa. It bega sometime aroud Jue 8 ad eded o about July 1 though floodig cotiued o the upper Mississippi River i the southeaster portio of the state for several more days. The phrase Iowa s Katria was ofte heard i descriptios of these evets. 7 By Jue 14, the Iowa River had rise dramatically. Warigs were issued for people to prepare to evacuate from the 500-year floodplai. The uiversity had time to get ready, ad with the help of voluteers, it moved importat library collectios out of harm s way. The bookstore The Uiversity of Iowa arts campus o the west side of the Iowa River (Source: Uiversity of Iowa News Services, < 56 Educause review Jauary/February 2009

6 Hawk Alert o Facebook i the studet uio moved its cotets to higher groud. 8 The uiversity s electrical power plat was shut dow o Jue 14 as sectios of the plat bega to take o water. 9 The good ews was that the situatio developed slowly, ad water levels rose relatively slowly, givig the uiversity time to pla. A ew template was developed for evacuatig buildigs durig a flood emergecy: EMERGENCY HAWK ALERT, [DELIVERY_DATE], {time}: {buildig ame} is uder immediate flood threat. If you ca safely do so, evacuate at oce ad immediately seek higher groud. Call 911 for emergecy help. Tue ito mass media outlets for further details. This message could be quickly set to the occupats of ay specific buildig(s) o campus. Fortuately, it has ot bee used, but the uiversity is prepared if a similar situatio arises agai. Summary of the Uiversity of Iowa Strategy The goal of the Uiversity of Iowa, like Virgiia Tech, is to be able to reach as may people as possible, as quickly as possible, i the evet of a emergecy o campus. Give the geeral mobility ad the broad rage of diverse commuicatio prefereces of its commuity, oe of the mai priorities is to provide a solutio that is as multimodal (voice, text, , etc.) as possible. The idea is to elimiate the depedecy o ay sigle commuicatios medium ad to distribute ad lesse the impact o the various ifrastructures ivolved. Aother importat strategic goal of the Iowa plaers is to make the process of iitiatig a emergecy otificatio as easy ad straightforward as possible while still keepig the process secure. Havig to wordsmith ad record a cocise, calm, articulate message i the midst of a crisis, especially with the likely distractios of phoes rigig ad other commotio i the backgroud, will be problematic, if ot impossible. To combat these problems, the plaers icorporated two ideas: (1) templates for a broad variety of emergecy scearios have bee created ad preapproved, ad (2) those templates use text-to-speech (TTS) euciatio i order to aouce dyamic (such as icidet locatio) data without the eed to record the messages. To add credibility, the TTS-euciated messages follow a prerecorded message i the police chief s voice: This is UI Police Chief Chuck Gree. Please liste to this importat Hawk Alert. Such a strategy is possible oly if the system/vedor supports bleded messages to iclude both recorded speech ad TTS euciatios. Fially, a commuicatio campaig is beig waged cotiuously, icludig everythig from bradig the service, so that it s easily recogized/refereced, to frequetly advertisig the service, its portal, ad the aual campus-wide tests via mass s, the course maagemet portal, ad the other elemets of the ENS ifrastructure. Future Cosideratios The Hawk Alert ENS will cotiue to be refied as experietial best practices emerge. Additioal commuicatio modes will be explored as well. Oe such mode is social etworkig sites particularly Facebook, which appears to be where college/uiversity studets hag out ad thus is likely to be a effective commuicatios chael. (I additio, messagig across Facebook has miimal impact to local commuicatios ifrastructure.) The future promises to brig better itegratio of these various products/ modes as stadards for iteroperability, such as CAP (Commo Alertig Protocol) ad EDXL (Emergecy Data Exchage Laguage), emerge. I the meatime, the uiversity hopes to develop a dashboard frot-ed applicatio to provide a sigle iterface ito multiple back-ed message-delivery systems. Lessos Leared ad Policy Implicatios The ogoig use of a ENS (to iclude both testig ad resposes to actual icidets) will provide valuable iformatio, as well as opportuities to make process improvemets. Both case studies yield the followig lessos: No sigle otificatio mechaism is goig to reach everyoe. The iheret fallibility of every otificatio mechaism madates that a campus use a array of diverse approaches to icrease the probability of makig cotact with everyoe i its commuity. Near real-time (i.e., istat) commuicatio is very difficult to achieve i a large campus eviromet. Ay solutio should focus o mechaisms for which the campus ca maage as may of the techical elemets as possible. Aother sigificat lesso leared from both case studies is the eed to simplify the process of sedig a alert. Assume, as i the case of the Uiversity of Iowa, that the campus has prepared preapproved templates. This strategy becomes more efficiet if the templates are optimized for speedy creatio ad delivery for example, havig a sigle message/template per sceario ad sedig oe alert per icidet to direct people to mass media outlets for additioal iformatio. Otherwise, update messages may be set too soo ad ca 58 Educause review Jauary/February 2009

7 potetially compete for commuicatios ifrastructure resources, possibly delayig the delivery of the origial message. What Works? Survey resposes idicated that the oe solutio with the potetial to work best is simple audio alerts with voice capabilities: outdoor or idoor sires or pagig systems. More geerally, resposes to the questio What works? icluded , callig trees, campus websites (occasioally liked to social websites), textig, ad campus radio ad televisio, alog with voic ad callig to legacy ladlie ad cell phoe systems probably because these were commoly deployed solutios. But with the exceptio of audio alerts, the same resposes were give for the questio What did ot work well? The primary cotributig factors were slow speed, cogestio, etwork capacity, available size of text messages, ad the difficulty of makig cotact as a result of subscribers mobility or the asychroous ature of services such as or voic . Time was the commo factor: time to officially coclude that there is a emergecy, time to compose a alert, time to get the alert through a cogested ifrastructure, ad time for recipiets to see or hear the alert oce it arrives at a give destiatio. A importat factor for istitutios to fully cosider is the least commo deomiator of each of the elemets of a commuicatios ifrastructure. A aalysis of peak capacities is probably i order. I the voice system, for example, a campus could make the mistake of cosiderig iboud truk capacity to be the most importat costraiig factor whe the availability of voic ports may actually be more limitig. Depedig o the way a specific voic system queues calls ad o how a specific ENS retries ad timeouts, overloadig that voic system may be highly detrimetal to delivery times. Optig-i versus Optig-out At the Uiversity of Iowa, a major cocer expressed by both campus officials ad customers was the potetial for oemergecy commuicatios (essetially, FIGURE 5. participatio rates: opt-i vs. opt-out Actio required to opt-i Actio required to opt-out 37 spam ) to dilute the service ad lesse the impact of emergecy messages. The decisio was therefore made to use the service oly for emergecy situatios. As a result, the etire eterprise directory, with all of the phoe ad cotacts for each perso, is loaded ito the Hawk Alert database. The iitial default is that all cotact poits will be used to sed Hawk Alerts. Someoe would have to explicitly opt-out of the service for each cotact poit, via the uiversity s homegrow portal, i order to ot receive Hawk Alerts. The decisio to make the overall receipt of emergecy Hawk Alerts a opt-out vs. a opt-i process stems from the perceptio that the potetial egative outcomes for those who iteded to opt-out but ever did are clearly less serious tha the outcomes for those who iteded to opt-i but ever did. Results from the survey reiforce the wisdom of this decisio. Although there are mior variatios from oe service to aother, whe the default status is opt-out, Survey resposes idicated that the oe solutio with the potetial to work best is simple audio alerts with voice capabilities Percet subscribers do so less tha 8 percet of the time, leavig approximately 92 percet participatig i the ENS (see Figure 5). O the other had, opt-i figures are low regardless of the service or the populatio. Not surprisigly, whe the default actio requires subscribers to opt-i, less tha 40 percet participate i the ENS. Most campuses have selected opt-i as their policy. Whe asked to commet o the ratioale, almost all of the survey respodets provided a commet similar to the followig: is see as the oe method that guaratees we reach everyoe, so it is automatically set; text, cell, ladlies use the same mechaism ad sice text has cost associated, it is opt-i. But cocer about low participatio rates appears to be causig may to recosider. The followig commets were typical: 92 We pla to get icomig studets to sig up ad are already seeig improvemet there parets wat them to sig up. Studet feedback idicated that opti was preferred to avoid spam. Havig the subscriptio process itegrated with [the] semester class registratio process has greatly improved the subscriptio rate, however. A studet must either opt-i or opt-out before completig the class registratio process. We automatically pop up a scree to all employees ad studets at the begiig of each semester that requires them to review ad update their emergecy cotact iformatio.... Studets were asked to provide a cell phoe umber; ow they are required to do so i order to register. Commuicatios Maagemet Most solutios iclude exteral emergecy orgaizatios i their ECM ad ENS procedures. I fact, the emergecy 60 Educause review Jauary/February 2009

8 preparedess questio ivolves commuicatios policy ad plaig as much as systems plaig ad operatios. Good cooperatio ad agreemets betwee campus ad local police, fire, ad EMS jurisdictios are required, icludig joit traiig exercises, a joit emergecy preparedess respose pla, ad emergecy commuicatios systems that uderstad each other. From all sources, we observed the commo threads of the requiremets for a egaged campus leadership ad the eed for proactive ad effective educatio of the college/ uiversity commuity. Workig with multiple agecies has become importat. Here are two typical survey resposes regardig commuicatios maagemet: (1) Local emergecy respose services are used to coordiate ad acquire accurate ad credible iformatio o the icidet. This icludes law eforcemet, fire, hazardous material, Emergecy Medical Services ad the Regioal Dispatch Ceter. (2) [We] have ivolved health authorities sice pademic plaig couty ad local, but also some ties to state level; city police departmet with Uiversity police better coordiatio to meet Cleary requiremets... ad better coordiatio betwee the Uiversity hospital ad campus [are] ot usually viewed iterally as belogig uder oe umbrella. Summary Several importat success factors ca be idetified as a result of the aalyses of the CCWG survey ad the two case studies. Techical ad operatioal cosideratios focus o implemetig multimodal techiques (e.g., use may ad diverse commuicatios solutios); realizig the extet to which solutios ad services ca operate i coverged etworked eviromets; ad uderstadig ad, if ecessary, improvig ifrastructure costraits (e.g., voic port vs. exteral truk capacity). Key policy ad strategic cosideratios focus o makig as may decisios as possible i advace. Importat factors iclude prerecorded ad predefied message templates for icidet-specific emergecies; authorizatio alerts by (preapproved) proxy; policies that elimiate every level betwee the observatio of a icidet ad the authority to sed otificatio; ad the ability to commuicate the realities about system capabilities before a actual emergecy. Other importat cosideratios cocer campus decisios about whether the ENS will be used exclusively for emergecies, how the istitutio will deal with the opt-i/opt-out policy, the importace of bradig to esure 62 Educause review Jauary/February 2009

9 clear ad focused idetificatio of the sedig authority, the eed for sufficiet testig to esure that both the roles of idividuals ad the capacities ad limitatios of the system are well uderstood, ad the requiremet to esure that all cotact databases are updated o at least a daily basis. Not surprisigly, the list of policy ad strategic questios is loger ad potetially more difficult to resolve tha the list of techical ad operatioal questios. I the fial aalysis, there are may dimesios to emergecy preparedess: otificatio techologies, commuicatios maagemet, operatioal ad strategic policies all withi the cotext of evets that either ca happe istatly or ca evolve over time. Like virtually every other problem i which techology is a iheret elemet of the solutio, the eed for emergecy preparedess alog with its policy questios, commuicatios issues, ad cotiually evolvig solutios will remai a issue for colleges ad uiversities for the foreseeable future. Notes 1. The EDUCAUSE Net@EDU Coverged Commuicatios Workig Group (CCWG) was formed o July 1, 2007, from the merger of the Net@EDU Wireless Workig Group ad the Itegrated Commuicatios Strategies Workig Group. For more iformatio o the CCWG ad how to become ivolved, please see the website or cotact ay of the members of the Steerig Committee. 2. The Steerig Committee selected ad cotacted 125 istitutios with a short survey ad received a 20 percet respose. Readers should ot cosider the data i this article as represetative of a radom or atioal survey. Results from the survey are more represetative of coversatios that would occur at a meetig of colleges ad uiversities that have completed sigificat work o ECM/ENS. Commets are reflective of the status ad progress of those workig o the problem ad ted to be weighted i favor of large, R-1 uiversities. 3. All quoted commets i this article are take from the questios ad resposes i the CCWG Steerig Committee survey. 4. Virgiia Tech s guidelies for choosig a alert system ca be foud i Appedix E of the Report of the Virgiia Tech Review Pael : < Report.cfm>. 5. William Dougherty, Carl Harris, ad Patricia Rodgers cotributed to the Virgiia Tech case study. 6. Iowa City Torado Storm, April 13, 2006, Iowa City Public Library website, < torado>. 7. Editorial: Iowa s Katria? Not If State Does Its Part, Mieapolis Star Tribue, Jue 16, 2008, < html?locatio_refer=Editorials:high lightmodules:1>. 8. Uiversity of Iowa, flood iformatio blog, < Jue 14, Gregg Heiga, Iowa River Keeps Risig towards Crest, Cedar Rapids Gazette, Jue 15, 2008, p. 1. Jauary/February 2009 Educause review 63