Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Safety & Security
Best Practices in Emergency Communications
5/9/2008
Sirens cannot convey a lot of information. Even two or three different siren codes are enough to confuse almost everyone. They are, however, cheap (typically $50,000 per siren) and reliable. They get people to turn on their cell phones and check their e-mail. Some of the more sophisticated systems can also broadcast a brief audio message as well as a siren tone. Some siren vendors are: American Signal Corp., ATI Systems, Federal Signal, Hormann America, Klaxon, Sentry Siren, and Whelen.One of the things I learned living in Lincoln, NB in the 1980s was that when the tornado siren went off you took shelter! Not in a few minutes, but right then. The secret of their success was that the people at the controls were very sensitive about crying wolf. The alarm wasn't sounded when there was a just possibility of a tornado, or even a tornado sighted in another part of town. When the siren went off and you could hear it, it meant you, and it meant now. Campuses need to remember that when they set policies about when they will use their siren.
According to Lilly and Rogers, before Virginia Tech installed VT Alert, they had extensive discussions with faculty and students that resulted in an agreement that the system would only be used for emergencies and would only be tested once a semester.
Cell Phones and Wireless Laptops Alternatives
As previously mentioned, cell phones and wireless-capable laptops can be disruptive in a classroom environment, and many instructors ask that they not be turned off during class. That introduces a need for back-channel strategies, such as a siren. Even though the campus has a siren system, the Information Technology unit at Virginia Tech is developing a Banner Notification system for classrooms. Normally the 36-inch by 8-inch display unobtrusively shows the time of day. In the event of an emergency, however, a brief message scrolls across the display. The displays are hardwired into the campus network and are powered over the network. The campus decided to develop the system in house after pricing commercially available systems.
What About an Urban Campus?
Virginia Tech is a relatively rural campus. What happens on a highly urban campus such as George Washington University located in the heart of DC? They adopted three strategies. The first was to make use of an already existing system,
Recommended Reading
- Yuba Community College District Renews with AT&T for Wireless
Yuba Community College District (YCCD) has contracted with AT&T to provide wireless Internet access to the 11,000 students attending the district's two Northern California colleges, Yuba College in Marysville and Woodland Community College.
- Surveys Raise Doubts on Virtualization Security
Migration to virtualization won't be the quick transition that some technology evangelists have predicted, according to recent surveys by two IT security companies. Nor is virtualization as secure as many might want it to be.
- What Was Your First Pet's Name? Lessons Learned About E-Mail Security
The intrusion last month into Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail highlighted the frailty of some types of data security measures. What are the lessons for the rest of us?
- Report Casts Doubt on Anti-terrorism Tools
A new report from the National Academy of Sciences, part of which was co-authored by an Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington professor, casts doubt on the effectiveness, lawfulness, and appropriateness of using data-based tools such as data-mining and biometrics to fight terrorism.
- University in South Africa Set To Install Quantum Cryptography on Municipal Network
Physicists at South Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal are set to install a quantum communication security solution over the eThekwini Municipality fibre-optic network infrastructure in Durban.
- Cedarville U Sets Up SonicWall Firewalls
Cedarville University in southwestern Ohio has implemented SonicWALL firewalls to provide high-speed gateway firewall protection for its 3,000 students.
