Emergency Notifications at UVic Ron Kozsan February 15, 2012 (in 20 minutes or less)

Heading Emergency Notification System A system to allow officials to quickly convey critical information to students, faculty and staff in the event of a major emergency.

Heading UVic  19,000 students  5,000 faculty & staff  one campus (162ha)  136 buildings

Heading Our Issue (early 2008)  needed something  didn’t have anything  everyone else was doing something ☞ learn from others Does your institution have a system in place?

Heading Concerns  net-new systems & databases  additional processes ☞ creating new silos, new issues  costly solutions  data ownership?  privacy?  information accuracy?

Heading Our decision  save $  build  best efforts: deploy something ☞ will still have $ later to buy if need be

Heading Principles  simplicity  no perfection  use multiple delivery methods  some is better than none  duplicate msgs are ok  leverage existing assets  Banner, , phones, …  easy to use (no IT staff req’d)  do not break anything

Heading Ownership  Corporate Communications  Campus Security  Occupational Health & Safety  IT/Systems (not an owner)

Heading System Components  Console  Banner ( & phone db)  Channels  (broadcast & directed)  voic broadcast  VoIP phone (text & audio)  SMS/TXT (via provider)

Heading Broadcast reach large audience quickly “all or nothing” (no opt-out) Directed more time consuming allows opt-in/opt-out

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Features  message templates  short (SMS, VoIP phones)  long ( )  customized use of channels  signature blocks  user groups

Heading Opt-in / Opt-out ?  – mandatory  broadcast (Exchange dist list)  directed  voic , VoIP broadcasts – mandatory  SMS – opt-in  costs to phone owners

Heading Why Banner?  already there:  addresses for faculty, staff, students  place for cell phone numbers Needed:  privacy impact?  promote use of “Mobile Phone”  user-maintained through portal

Heading What works well  broadcasts:   voic  VoIP  SMS/TXT – not bad

Heading Not so well  SMS/TXT  signal coverage  lost/delayed messages  beyond our control  directed (slow)  no automation for voic broadcast

Heading Success Factors  key stakeholders at the table  clear ownership  regular testing  fast delivery (of messages)  no technicians required

Heading Diplomacy: The fine art of ensuring the other party gets your way

Heading Message ChannelClients (#) Estimated Success Rate (%) Delivery Timeframe Send Rate SentReceived Exchange Broadcast minutes2000/min Voic Broadcast minutes1500/min VoIP Phone Broadcast minutes180/min Directed *5 hours4000/hour SMS/TXT Messaging *3 hours*1100/hour * indicates educated guess Results (November 2009) Subscriber Mobile Phone Faculty & Staff Students

Heading Next steps?  business continuity (availability)  improve directed (speed)  more channels (reach)  twitter  auto-post to web sites

Heading Console Application  Oracle APEX  pulls , cell phone numbers from Banner  sends messages (multiple methods) The Big Red Button Emergency Notification System - Console

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Costs (one-time)  $2,700 – VoIP phones for lecture halls  $700 – SMS provider (setup fee)  30 days Oracle/APEX programming**  $8,000 – Promotions & advertising

Heading UVic Emergency Alerts Poster

Heading The Big Question: Have we ever used it “for real” ? No (thankfully)

Questions? Ron Kozsan University of Victoria

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