A no-cost download of a Web-browser scripting product enables the system, IT officials from the Burlington, N.C., school told the Association for Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education, also known as ACUTA. Association members share technology challenges and the solutions that come up in an effort to address common problems in a cost-effective way.
Using iMacro from iOpus, the school can trigger alerts via the campus VoIP network, digital signage, screen pops on computer lab machines, e-mail system, SMS messaging networks and outdoor sirens. The school is considering adding instant messaging warnings, URL redirection from school computers, university cable information channel and the campus radio station, says Eccles Wall, assistant directory for networking/telecommunications at Elon.
IMacro is installed on a PC within the school's data center where it is considered physically safe. It can be accessed via VPN and manipulated via remote control, Wall says.
He demonstrated it at the ACUTA show in Boston, accessing the iMacro dashboard and initiating a storm warning to be displayed as digital signage on a monitor in the IT department. In actual use, the signage would be posted on screens linked to the school's cable TV network.
Pre-recorded audio messages can be sent over the VoIP network to be broadcast from phones with speakerphone capability and from IP speakers placed in some buildings, he says. The canned messages can warn of a particular weather events like tornadoes, he says.
Testing is key. One trial run of using a set of university computers to generate e-mail warnings had the messages still being sent hours after they were initiated.
Logs of who uses the iMacro software to trigger which alarms are created by the software and are useful for forensic analysis afterwards, he says.
If power dies on campus during an emergency, the school could still send text messages to student cell phones. Students can opt in to the e2Campus messaging service available via the university intranet.
Beyond writing scripts to issue warnings, the toughest part of setting up the warning system was getting the personnel in charge of declaring emergencies to agree who would decide and how those decisions would be made, says Christopher Waters, the director of information systems and assistant CIO at the university.
He says he pushed university officials to accept responsibility for calling emergencies, leaving the IT department to enable delivery of warnings. He says it took some doing to get these officials to set policies and procedures. "It's not necessarily about egos," he says, "it's about comfort."
Wall says the iMacro software gets done what the school needs, and at no charge costs less than commercial notification platforms. "It's a quick and dirty solution until something better comes along," he says.