2008 Woodie Awards
MU to test emergency text messaging system in Jan.
Austin R. Fast
Issue date: 12/4/07 Section: Campus
Since the e2Campus Emergency Text Messaging System was introduced this summer, Miami University administrators have been struggling with how to best test the effectiveness of the system and discover any hidden glitches.
Provost Jeffrey Herbst announced Monday at a university senate meeting that campus administrators plan to take the emergency text messaging system on its first test drive at the start of next semester.
"We will have a test in mid-January and before that test there will be a big publicity surge," Herbst said.
Although the system has been advertised on the myMiami Web site twice, on Miami Metro buses, through e-mails and through various other venues, subscriptions to the service remain at less than one-fifth of Miami's Oxford campus community.
Miami University Chief of Police John McCandless explains that although the Miami University Police Department (MUPD) strongly advocates and prominently promotes the system on the front page of the police Web site, they cannot force students and faculty to sign up for the system.
"At the end of the day, it's voluntary," McCandless said.
According to numbers released by McCandless, registrants for the Hamilton campus system number are at 1,235; for Middletown, 1,212; and for the Oxford campus, 3,785.
However, McCandless warned that these numbers cannot simply be summed up into one grand total of how many people have registered to use the system. He explains that this is because some people may have registered for all three Miami campuses or only for one or two of the campuses and there is no method to know who is signed up for which system.
IT Services Deputy Information Officer Debra Allison explained that this test is partly in response to student and faculty requests.
"We've been requested by many folks to do a test," Allison said. "Many times these systems have a failure when they are tested. We need to test to see how the system will react here."
Provost Jeffrey Herbst announced Monday at a university senate meeting that campus administrators plan to take the emergency text messaging system on its first test drive at the start of next semester.
"We will have a test in mid-January and before that test there will be a big publicity surge," Herbst said.
Although the system has been advertised on the myMiami Web site twice, on Miami Metro buses, through e-mails and through various other venues, subscriptions to the service remain at less than one-fifth of Miami's Oxford campus community.
Miami University Chief of Police John McCandless explains that although the Miami University Police Department (MUPD) strongly advocates and prominently promotes the system on the front page of the police Web site, they cannot force students and faculty to sign up for the system.
"At the end of the day, it's voluntary," McCandless said.
According to numbers released by McCandless, registrants for the Hamilton campus system number are at 1,235; for Middletown, 1,212; and for the Oxford campus, 3,785.
However, McCandless warned that these numbers cannot simply be summed up into one grand total of how many people have registered to use the system. He explains that this is because some people may have registered for all three Miami campuses or only for one or two of the campuses and there is no method to know who is signed up for which system.
IT Services Deputy Information Officer Debra Allison explained that this test is partly in response to student and faculty requests.
"We've been requested by many folks to do a test," Allison said. "Many times these systems have a failure when they are tested. We need to test to see how the system will react here."
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