A connected campus
New text-messaging system broadens emergency-communication effort
K-State has introduced a text-messaging system to alert students, faculty and staff of campus emergencies.
The voluntary service, which lets qualified users register their cell-phone numbers via the university’s existing eProfile information system, became available Jan. 18.
"The text-messaging system is an additional way for us to immediately inform the campus community of emergencies and to provide information on how to deal with them," said Thomas Rawson, vice president for administration and finance.
Text messaging, an addition to the campus-wide emergency communication effort, will let campus authorities dispatch alerts and information directly to registered users via their cell phones. It dovetails with the existing system of e-mails and postings to the K-State Web page.
Messages will be sent by Leader Alert, a rapid-notification platform.
Rob Caffey, director of K-State’s office of mediated education, provided the following information about the new system:
* All current students, faculty and staff are eligible to sign up, but the service is optional. Only one cell-phone number per user can be registered.
* Sign-up is through the university eProfile system. Go to https://eid.k-state.edu/, sign in and click the "manage your emergency contact settings" link.
* Users can sign up at any time and can disable and re-enable the service at any time. They also can change their contact phone numbers at any time. Users will receive a confirmation text message when they sign up and when they change numbers. Users who don’t receive a confirmation message should contact the IT Help Desk, 532-7722.
* Although the system will be tested twice each year on specified days, K-State cannot guarantee that emergency text messages will be received in a timely fashion.
* Users are responsible for any messaging charges from their phone service providers and for keeping their contact information up to date.
Photo: By visiting K-State’s eProfile system, users can register a cell phone to receive text-message alerts of a campus emergency. The message shown above is the initial confirmation sent by Leader Alert, which provides the service. Such confirmation should show up within 24 hours of registering.