 With instances of gun violence and other emergency
situations on college campuses making the news all too
often, security systems at colleges and universities
remain of the utmost importance. Campus security not
only needs to be strong, but current to ensure the safety
of students. Following the model of many of our world's
functions today, many colleges and universities are
looking to text messaging to keep campus safety as modern
and powerful as possible.
Many U.S. college students are familiar with semesterly
tests of university emergency systems interrupting their
text and email inboxes. While students may feel troubled
with what seem like unnecessary messages, SMS-based
emergency systems are an increasingly important feature
of campus safety.
A large proportion of institutions use software that
enables them to mass text public safety alerts to a
database of student cell phone numbers. This application
of this technology is simple and familiar, calling to
mind programs like Amber Alert, but powerful. As of
a 2010 survey, 99.8% of college students have cell phones,
giving SMS a great breadth of reach among student populations.
Not only is text messaging the most effectively wide-reaching
medium when contacting students, it is also the most
efficient and effective way to contact students. A 2014
study indicates that college students spend, on average,
between eight and ten hours on their phones each day,
with many reporting that they are uncomfortable when
their phones are not in sight. This enormous volume
of cell phone use among college students, paired with
the apparent inseparability of students from their phones,
makes texting their phones the best, and fastest, way
to get in touch with students.
Additionally, several programs exist that allow students
to give anonymous tips to authorities when they think
something may be amiss. Many institutions and authorities
offer specific numbers that students can text to initiate
a tip if they see something suspicious, and applications
such as TipSoft afford similar functions. Anonymous
tips are an invaluable way for public safety authorities
to gather real-time data on potential threats where
they may not always have eyes, but where students may
be.
By bringing the ability to issue anonymous tips to
SMS, institutions make anonymous tipping as quick, easy,
and convenient as possible for college students. With
a large proportion of students having their phones on
them most of the time, and with texting being even more
accessible to students than web pages or online forms,
SMS tips are an important step in encouraging more students
to report suspicious activity. Texting is also ideal
for the reporting of time-sensitive matters, as issues
of public safety often are, allowing for rapid transmission
and receipt of information. Clearly, SMS and security
share a rich future.
About the Author -
Sharon Housley is the VP of Marketing for NotePage,
Inc. a software company for communication software solutions.
http://www.notepage.net
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Why Campus Security Needs Texting