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A new emergency alert system that will warn members of the campus community about highly dangerous situations through messages on many campus Web pages is being put into effect at the Urbana campus.
In the event of an emergency that poses significant and imminent threat of death, great bodily injury or significant property damage, Public Affairs will post an alert through the Emergency Web Alert System, which will generate pop-up messages on the Web pages of units that have chosen to participate in the program.
When the system has been activated, a red message box will appear (on properly coded pages) describing the nature of the emergency and providing a link to further information. When the user closes the alert message box, an emergency status page will open in a new browser window, and Public Affairs will post updated information on that page to keep the campus community informed as the situation progresses.
All units on campus have been asked to identify Web pages that are used by large numbers of their on-campus constituents as entry points to the http://illinois.edu domain, and webmasters are being provided with the JavaScript code for the alert system to add to those pages. The Emergency Web Alert System coding is a required element for all top-level sites on the http://illinois.edu domain, all college and department home pages, the University Library home page and catalog gateway pages, the Phonebook gateway, the Express E-mail page, UI Now, and the Public Affairs and Division of Public Safety home pages.
The goal is to have the system on as many campus Web pages as possible to ensure that emergency messages are widely disseminated when Chancellor Richard Herman authorizes activation of the system, said Robin Kaler, associate chancellor for public affairs. “However, the (Web alert system) is just one of several means of alerting people. We can also disseminate information through local media, through the text messaging system that was implemented last year, through mass e-mail, the storm sirens and loudspeakers on police cars. Depending upon the level and type of emergency, we can use any combination.
“Of all of them, the text messaging and (Web alerts) will be used the most sparingly because the last thing we want to do is over-use them and have people ignore them. If people see the pop-up messages on their computers or receive text-messages on their phones or other devices, they need to pay attention,” Kaler said.
The Office of Web Services is available to answer questions: 244-8639 or webservices@illinois.edu. Webmasters are being asked to fill out a form for tracking code implementation.
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