Page 126 - Security Today, July/August 2018

MASS COMMUNICATION
DOES YOUR MASS NOTIFICATION
PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS?
Speaking of integration, your mass notification system should also seamlessly integrate with tools, databases and applications already in place such as student and teacher directories, portals with class informa- tion and student profiles, and other databases that hold valuable infor- mation that can be used to ensure real-time and targeted notifications.
Anytime you add a new technology solution to your existing stack, you must be careful to ensure it will work effectively with these sys- tems—whether they are new, legacy or custom-built—so that informa- tion does end up siloed in a way that undermines the value EMNS can deliver. Even the best implementation requires some time and resourc- es, so the last thing you want your IT team doing is wasting valuable cycles learning new languages and reprogramming.
HAVE YOU THOUGHT THROUGH
YOUR NOTIFICATION MESSAGES?
Best-of-breed mass notification vendors will have trained teams with years of experience in installing and optimizing these systems. As important as the technology is, understanding your audience and what types of messages you want to communicate is equally as important.
It is best practice to have separate sets of protocols for emergencies and general day-to-day notifications: end users need to very quickly and clearly distinguish between an event that could impact their safety and one that simply provides updates on, say, changes to class sched- ules. The former should be “intrusive in a good way,” in that they reach the user in a manner that is impactful enough to inspire action. These separate protocols should live within one holistic notification system, though, so that there is no confusion between disparate channels.
During this message development and testing phase is when you’ll work with your solutions provider to determine how to most effec- tively engage with your audience and what other nuances should be considered: language variety or barriers; regional dialects or sayings; or preferred communication channels and technology will all impact how you craft your notification strategy.
WHAT ARE THE GEO-TARGETING CAPABILITIES?
Educational institutions with highly distributed campuses are going to find situations when alerts need to be directed to a specific area ranging from a building, to the entire campus, or even multiple campuses world- wide, to ensure only those recipients are notified.
Geo-targeting is often used by emergency response or law enforce- ment organizations seeking to alert citizens in defined geographic areas about various threats and incidents, but it is a capability that can be leveraged by campuses as well—particularly those with students and faculty spread across a large geographic area or multiple locations. Through combining speed and relevancy, organizations can help increase employee adoption rates and use of notification systems and ultimately ensure that alerts effectively reach, inform and positively impact your school.
ABILITY TO ASSIGN USERS CERTAIN
LEVELS OF SYSTEM ACCESSIBILITY
Although we read often about software and hardware breakdowns that lead to cyber breaches or other negative outcomes, in reality human beings are most often the weak point in the system. That’s not to say that your IT team isn’t doing their job well, but today’s malicious users are incredibly sophisticated when it comes to influencing human behavior, and most of the time their targets aren’t even the technical employees, but other individuals who might have access and can be exploited.
To maintain the integrity of your mass notification solution - as well as the larger integrity of your entire IT system - you should be able to assign users different levels of system accessibility, so only those with the most technical expertise have full access to the mission-critical parts of the system. For other users who may simply need to login to send a daily message, that level of access should more restrictive. This differentiation can help prevent cyber breaches, incorrect notifications and false alarms.
DOES IT MEET REGULATORY/COMPLIANCE REQUIREMENTS LIKE THE CLERY ACT?
The Clery Act is a consumer protection law that aims to provide trans- parency around campus crime policy and statistics. When a crime cov- ered by the Clery Act occurs, campus officials are required to evaluate if there is a serious or ongoing threat to the campus community to deter- mine if a timely warning needs to be issued to all staff and students.
In the event of an immediate, significant danger to the health or safe- ty campus community (e.g., weather, disease outbreak), campus officials may issue an emergency notification. This notification can include the entire campus, or be limited to a specific area deemed to be at risk.
For campus officials, understanding what qualifies under the Clery Act is crucial, and your mass notification provider must be able to offer sound guidance to help ensure your team is in lock-step with Act requirements.
It’s time to ensure your campus is ready for anything
Researching and demoing new technology solutions can be time con- suming, selling the idea to school officials who control the budget can be difficult, and securing buy-in from IT staff for implementation can take some cajoling. At the end of the day, though, the well-being of students, faculty and parents is simply far too
important to delay starting the process of selecting a
mass notification system. The best solutions are
already saving lives—can you afford to wait?
Daniel Graff-Radford is the Chief Product Officer at OnSolve.
10 WWW.CAMPUSLIFESECURITY.COM | AUGUST 2018
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CAMPUS SECURITY & LIFE SAFETY