Members of the campus community are urged to verify their contact information online for a new campus emergency text and e-mail messaging system called Illini-Alert.
Although the Urbana campus began a mass text and e-mail alert system in October 2007, campus officials recently chose a new service provider, MyStateUSA,to provide better service to the campus community. They began preparing to change over to the new system during the winter holiday break, and after a few weeks of testing with small groups of users, the new system was activated at 4:30 a.m. Feb. 8.
The system will be used to broadcast information to the campus community in the event of a potentially life-threatening emergency.
Students and faculty and staff members are asked to log on to http://emergency.illinois.edu to register or to verify their current information if they enrolled in the previous system. Users now can add two additional contacts to their accounts, such as spouse, significant other or parent or guardian. The new system allows users to send test messages to their cell phone and e-mail accounts for verification.
Among other enhanced capabilities, Illini-Alert delivers messages at “true text” speed, greatly reducing delivery times in comparison to the previous system. The registration process for Illini-Alert also is easier because it does not require users to enter the e-mail address of their phone provider; they simply enter their phone number.
Another important feature of the new emergency-messaging system is that it is not hosted on campus; therefore, it would not be disrupted by a major crisis on the Urbana campus, such as a natural disaster.
On Feb. 17, a full-scale test of Illini-Alert was conducted at about 10 a.m. with test messages sent to all of the approximately 25,000 people who had signed up for the emergency-messaging service and to all e-mail addresses on the illinois.edu domain.
Users who signed up or who have campus e-mail addresses but did not receive a message during the test are asked to contact the Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services Help Desk at 244-7000 or consult@illinois.edu. The campus community will be alerted prior to future tests.
Authorized UI personnel – including the chancellor, provost, executive director of public safety/chief of police, university president or their designees – can activate the Illini-Alert messaging system during emergency situations.
The campus has signed a contract with MyStateUSA to provide the emergency-messaging service through 2013 at an initial cost of $65,000 plus a fee of $3,700 per year for recurring maintenance. The previous emergency messaging system was a free system that was developed by Mutare Software.
Illini-Alert is just one of several emergency alert systems in use at the Urbana campus. Other emergency-notification systems include the Emergency Web Alert System, which posts messages on participating campus Web sites; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather radios; mass e-mail; UI Channel 7; the campus telephone tree; public broadcast media, and the 265-UIPD (265-8473) automated voice-mail number.
Visit Public Safety’s Web page, www.dps.uiuc.edu/, (click on “safety resources”) for information about protecting yourself in emergency situations.
