Genre: Information/Explanation

The number and diversity of threats within the past decade have created the need to pay closer attention to the safety of our educational institutions . Rampage shootings at Virginia Tech Univ. , Blacksburg , and Northern Illinois Univ. , DeKalb ; explosions from a chemical spill at Georgia Tech Univ. , Atlanta ; a bomb at the Univ. of Oklahoma , Norman ; and the devastation from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on Gulf Coast campuses , have driven home the vulnerability of our educational institutions . Schools must be ready to enhance campus preparedness for catastrophic events , from weather-related incidents to terrorism . Code compliance Not only are campus officials concerned about protecting their campuses from today's complex threats , but also about complying with new government mandates and codes . Enforced by the Dept. of Education , Washington , universities and colleges must comply with the Clery Act , which requires timely warnings to the campus community about crimes that pose an ongoing threat to students and employees . In addition , the U.S. House of Representatives passed The College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2008 , which requires colleges and universities to issue public warnings within 30 min . of an emergency . This bill is currently being reviewed by the Senate . Several governing bodies , such as the Dept. of Defense , Washington ; Dept. of Homeland Security , Washington ; and the National Fire Protection Association , Quincy , MA , have already adopted warning-system codes and requirements . Mass Notification Systems , or MNS , are defined as life-safety systems designed to alert and protect people in an emergency . They provide real-time information to people in a building , area , or site through recorded and live voice messages , as well as direction through visual signals . While campus security professionals and administrators struggle with the " how " and the " what " to communicate , campus facilities' managers and IT administrators focus on how to build the MNS . They study which MNS technologies are available to get the message out , how these technologies can be implemented and integrated with existing infrastructure and communication systems , and where the equipment and systems should be installed . Voice to text According to a report from the Univ. of California Campus Security Task Force , Oakland , CA , released in January 2008 , " Emergency notification systems should be both layered and redundant-no single means of communication should be solely relied upon to reach the entire campus community . " From hearing specific voice announcements on campus outdoor loudspeakers , to students receiving emergency text messages on cell phones , school administrators recognize that to effectively communicate in a timely manner , multiple communication solutions should be used , depending on the type of emergency and the campus environment . For example , campus safety experts know that e-mail ca n't reach people on athletic fields , or in classes where professors require students to silence their cell phones . To reach both of these areas , an indoor notification system and an outdoor voice-based warning system would be the most efficient and effective way to alert students or those in the area . According to the Blueprint for Safer Campuses , published by the Int ' l Assn. of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators , West Hartford , CT , communications can consist of the following layers : The MNS should be customized to meet the needs of the individual campus . It should be a modular and scalable system that is easily expanded in phases , by leveraging existing systems . Administrators can build the system one layer at a time , starting with an outdoor system or with an emergency text alerting system , and then add more layers as funds are available . The MNS should allow administrators to alert and inform people in multiple areas , using multiple languages with changing instructions , broadcast to a single floor of a building or to an entire campus , and also to send messages to multiple , geographically separated campuses for regional control . These systems must meet multiple safety industry codes and standards , including the NFPA 72-Annex E , OSHA 1910 . 165-Employee Alarm Systems , the Americans with Disabilities Act , and SAFETY Act Certification , providing legal liability protection for the university in the event of a terrorist attack . Control unit-an integrated base station that transmits emergency announcements as prerecorded or live ( microphone ) messages to any individual or group of audible devices on a campus , as well as sending commands to activate visual-notification appliances . A control unit continuously monitors the status of all radio transceivers and their associated audible and visual notification devices . Web-based emergency communication-text - and voice-messaging systems can alert tens of thousands of students , faculty , and staff . Alerts can be sent simultaneously to multiple devices , including e-mail addresses , cell phones , pagers , and other wireless devices . This dramatically increases the likelihood each student will receive the message , no matter where or when an emergency occurs . Due to possible grid power loss , all MNS components should be protected with battery back up . Other power options , which include solar panels and generators , should be considered to allow alerts to continue without interruption . With a personal alerting system , such as emergency text alerting , the system should be secured with a redundant data center . Campus administrators should be able to remotely activate critical MNS functions from a cell phone or laptop . If the primary command center were destroyed , a fixed or mobile secondary station should be set up to control the system . For improved system management and situation awareness , an MNS should be integrated directly with other command systems , and other life-safety and security systems such as chemical - and intrusion-detection systems and fire-alarm panels . MNS at work Longwood Univ. , Farmville , VA , has nearly 5,000 enrolled students , with 70 % of undergraduates living on campus . With more than 800 full - and part-time faculty , the university has 50 buildings on a 60-acre campus , and 32 off-campus buildings . Longwood Univ. officials relied on emergency contact " phone trees " for internal communications , and media outlets for external communications . Students outdoors or off campus could not be notified within seconds of a disaster or power outage . " The events at Virginia Tech and other schools across the country have demonstrated the necessity to create redundant effective systems that provide information among many pathways , " said Dan Dillon , Longwood University's emergency-management director . An MNS solution from Cooper Notification , Long Branch , NJ , that includes outdoor warning systems , emergency text messaging , and e-mail alerts , enables officials at Longwood Univ. to alert the campus community in real time , during events such as a tornado or police emergency , and offers protection for the entire campus . The university has installed six WAVES ( wireless audio-visual emergency system ) with HPSAs at highly populated on - and off-campus locations for exterior voice alerting . In an emergency , the HPSAs will broadcast a siren alert , followed by a live or recorded voice message tailored to the situation . The intrusive system has the ability to alert the entire campus or individual areas , depending on the scope of the emergency . In addition , the university has a roam secure alert network ( RSAN ) personal alerting system , also from manufacturer Cooper Notification . Known on campus as Alert Longwood , the system sends emergency text messages to students on their cell phones and e-mail to their university e-mail accounts . Cooper Notification's MNS has been successfully tested in military applications . Additionally , the WAVES outdoor warning system can be integrated into the RSAN platform for a one-system solution . System features include the ability to deliver clear , audible voice alerts to the outdoor population ; to operate on its own network , not relying on the college's infrastructure in the event of a power outage ; and to activate the system quickly and easily . A campus is a growing , evolving community . It is necessary to regularly test and evaluate the MNS , including its subsystems and procedures . The potential for disaster in a college community always exists . But the severity of events-whether natural or manmade-can be curtailed through proper application of a good mass notification system . Authors