MINNEAPOLIS – Honeywell announced Aug. 27 that Delaware State University (DSU) in Dover, Del., will use the Instant Alert® Plus notification service to help communicate with students, faculty and staff in an emergency.
DSU previously relied on e-mail, fliers and door-to-door outreach to circulate information. With Instant Alert Plus, the university can now quickly reach people both on and off campus with a clear, consistent message via any communication device – phone, cell phone, pager, e-mail or PDA. The service can send up to 175,000 30-second phone calls and 125,000 text messages in 15 minutes.
“Instant Alert Plus will help us get important information to more people in less time,” said James Overton, chief of police at DSU, which experienced a campus shooting in September 2007. “We never want to go through that type of event again, but if a major emergency arises we are prepared and have the ability to get the word out quickly.”
The service also allows DSU to integrate information from its current student and employee databases during set up. As a result, the university is able to leverage existing contact details instead of having to manually enter data, or requiring students and staff to sign up for the service and input their information. This helps ensure that most of the school community will receive critical alerts.
Students, faculty and staff will be able to update their contact details and add new devices through the DSU Web site.
In several recent examples, Instant Alert Plus customers have been able to reach more than 95 percent of their contacts, which is considerably higher than the 20 to 50 percent range that is common with campus notification technology.
Customized Control
To activate an alert, administrators only need to place a phone call or type a message on an Internet-connected computer. Instant Alert Plus uses a series of distributed, redundant call center networks to distribute the information, making it one of the most reliable means of emergency communication available.
Along with broadcasting news, DSU can create an unlimited number of lists and alerts for specific groups, such as residents of a specific dorm or emergency responders. This gives school officials the ability to quickly send messages to contacts who may be in immediate danger or to responders regarding the location of an emergency.
Two-Way Communication
DSU will use the polling feature of Instant Alert Plus to solicit feedback from students, faculty and staff. Other features include the ability to automatically bridge message recipients into a conference call, which is particularly important when administrators are off campus and decisions need to be made immediately. The service also includes real-time, Web-based reports that show who has and has not received a particular alert.
“Planning is key to handling a difficult situation,” said Luca Mazzei, vice president of marketing and strategy at Honeywell Building Solutions. “By pulling information from its existing databases and using Instant Alert Plus, DSU is not only preparing for an emergency, but taking the necessary steps to achieve the best outcome.”
Created for municipalities, colleges and universities, businesses, and healthcare and industrial facilities, Instant Alert Plus is an extension of Instant Alert for Schools, a notification service that helps K-12 school districts improve communication and emergency preparedness. More than 2,300 schools nationwide use Instant Alert to connect with parents and guardians.
For more information about Honeywell Instant Alert Plus or Instant Alert for Schools, call 800-345-6770 ext. 601 or visit www.honeywell.com/instantalert.
Honeywell Aug. 27, 2008 press release
To subscribe to Campus Safety magazine, click here.
