According to the OASIS standard, “The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is a simple but general format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings over all kinds of networks. CAP allows a consistent warning message to be disseminated simultaneously over many different warning systems, thus increasing warning effectiveness while simplifying the warning task… CAP provides a template for effective warning messages based on best practices identified in academic research and real-world experience.”
Campus officials responsible for their institutions’ mass notification/emergency alert systems need to understand CAP and might want to consider adopting it for the following reasons:
1. Campuses may be able to choose to have their alerting or mass notification systems connect to the public side of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) and CMAS in order to receive alert messages from local or national sources directly. To be able to do this, however, the systems must be able to receive messages in the CAP v1.2 format.
2. Even the institutions that don’t tie into CMAS and IPAWS might want to become CAP compliant because most campuses have multiple mass notification systems in place that are proprietary and might not work together. This can lead to a delay in the delivery of emergency messages. CAP, however, simplifies the notification process by using a common language or format that all systems (that are CAP compliant) can understand.
