AlertFind emergency system passes first test

Author: Eleanor Horowitz

Text messages and e-mails were delivered to 2,802 members of the College community during the first test of the emergency notification system AlertFind on Wednesday, April 2. The campus-wide test helped identify glitches and problems with the system and is part of the College's ongoing efforts of emergency planning.

In executing the test, planners expected to find some setbacks with AlertFind in the hopes of smoothing them out before a real implementation of the system is needed.

"There is a reason why we do an all-campus test - it is to identify the problems," said John Emerson who has led the AlertFind initiative while serving as co-chair of the Emergency Planning Steering Committee.

In Wednesday's test, AlertFind delivered 1,271 text messages and 1,531 e-mails. An additional 306 text messages were cancelled after four hours of failed delivery, and 12 students reported messages with no content or jumbled characters.

Text message failures may have been caused by conflict with cell phone carriers, incorrectly entered numbers on BannerWeb, changed numbers since the time of entry on BannerWeb or a student being on leave for the semester or abroad with a disabled phone.

E-mail issues encountered included delivery delays of anywhere from 40 minutes to two hours. Since the e-mail is sent by an outside source to a mass group, the message was delayed in the Middlebury SPAM filter, a coding glitch that has since been fixed. Students who forward their e-mail to another address, such as Gmail, reported that the message got stuck in their SPAM filter, an external problem more difficult to solve.

The College chose the AlertFind system in early 2007 because of its versatility and ability to send messages via text message, automated phone message, e-mail and pager. The system also offers an escalation scale that prioritizes message format and can send the message to each format until successfully received.

In a separate test for faculty and staff, the escalation was used and required a confirmation reply. The first message went to cell phone, second to campus e-mail, and third to office phone. "The message goes sequentially and if you don't respond it keeps hassling," said Emerson.

Students were informed of the AlertFind test one day before the test message. The e-mail asked students to reply if they encountered problems receiving the message, but it did not require confirmation.

"I hadn't read the e-mail, I just got the text and didn't know what it was about," said Daniela Tsoneva '11. "The text said to respond if there were problems, but I didn't understand what problems I could even have."

For others the test ran unsuccessfully and without any knowledge of the test.

"I've never heard of this," said Julia Ireland '11, who did not receive a message from AlertFind. "I had no idea that people were even receiving texts and e-mails."

Despite the confusion, the message caused little disruption to daily life and was delivered successfully to the majority of students, but some felt unease with the system.

"Personally I feel we should have done this earlier, and I know others find it annoying to have to give away personal information," said Jee Yeon Park '08.

The Emergency Planning Steering Committee has taken sensitive care to safeguard the information involved with AlertFind, particularly cell phone numbers.

While the test was sent to all students, the ultimate use of AlertFind will most likely be geared towards smaller groups with more specific messages. Typically, issues concerning the entire campus can be handled with an e-mail or a posted notice on the College Web site. AlertFind will be used for situations such as the train derailment in the fall when it would have been helpful to notify students living off-campus near town, according to Emerson.

"We only want to use it when we really need to because we want people to take it seriously when it is used," said Emerson. "We hate to impose and inconvenience people."

The AlertFind test marks another step in the Emergency Response Plan that formally began with the development of the Emergency Planning Steering Committee in the fall of 2006. The plan includes everything from pandemic flu response to locating reliable flashlights at the Breadloaf campus. Most issues that the Committee deals with are "invisible, with the only reason a student would have interest in it is if it fails," said Emerson.

"We are at the point where we have a pretty comprehensive plan in place," he said, "but it is evolutionary and it will continue to develop."