Fall emergency notification test ran well
Miami tested its emergency notification system (ENS) at 1:05 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23, at an unannounced time for the first time.
The tests were successful, delivering the test message within minutes to the majority of students, staff and faculty.
Representatives of the Institutional Response Team (IRT) sent test messages via the following methods:
1. A variety of alerts were triggered using e2Campus including:
* Email and text message alerts
* Informacast, the voice- and display-based feature for VoIP telephones and six blue light phone towers
* The Four Winds Interactive digital signage system
* Miami Cable Television System
* Miami University Oxford, regional campus and police services home pages
* A Twitter alert on the university account
2. An all-Miami email was sent using via Rapid Email
About 33 percent of recipients responded to a survey sent to a random list of 10,000 staff, faculty and students, all local campuses.
Eighty-seven percent of survey responders said they had received at least one alert within five minutes. About 11 percent reported to have received their first alert after 1:20 p.m. This can be attributed to many factors, including but not limited to: a phone that is not on at the time of the test, poor cell phone reception, not being near a computer or phone during the test.
Emails reached 98 percent of survey respondents, with most of the other two percent not having checked junk filters or being away from their computers.
Text message alerts were sent to 12,798 subscribers. The survey results showed that 96.5 percent of messages were delivered. Of the 426 who did not receive the text alert, 90 percent reported that they had not registered to receive text alerts. This had been anticipated, so the survey provided two means to help respondents sign up for an account.
The test alert was displayed on the Miami University home pages (Oxford and regional campuses) the MUPD website, and the myMiami portal. Web alerts were seen by 25 percent of people surveyed.
Of those who were in a campus building, 46 percent reported to have heard or seen an alert via VoIP on a campus phone.
About 25 percent of people outdoors heard the verbal alerts from the six blue-light telephone towers on the Oxford campus.
The alert began displaying on some digital signs within three minutes, but it took other digital signs over 15 minutes to display the alert. About 5 percent of responders reported to have seen those messages.
The university’s policy is to use the ENS in cases of immediate threat to safety or closure of a campus/cancelling classes. Staff continually assess the process to try to improve message delivery.
If you are not registered yet to receive text or email messages through the e2Campus system, you can do so starting at www.miamioh.edu/ens. If you need assistance with your e2Campus cell phone registration, contact the IT help desk, 513-529-7900 or ithelp@miamioh.edu.
