Preparing for the Unpredictable
Lessons learned in 2020 from deploying this security solution
- By Stephanie Osorno
- April 01, 2021
Organizations of every kind, particularly higher education
campuses, were forced to navigate and adjust to several
changes throughout 2020. In addition to finding creative
ways to maintain a productive learning year amid the
COVID-19 crisis, implementing improved on-campus safety
measures and staying connected in a remote or hybrid environment
quickly became a top priority for school leaders.
While this strange, unpredictable year is finally behind us, last year
is proof that school communities should strive to be better prepared
for any additional challenges and uncertainties in store for 2021.
The road ahead may seem daunting, but the good news is that the
evolution of Mass Notification System (MNS) technology can help to
enhance safety, minimize learning disruption, and improve schoolwide
communication — even in a new COVID-19 landscape.
Lessons Learned: Navigating the Unpredictable
The unusual circumstances of 2020 triggered a slew of questions from
employees, staff and students as they attempted to make sense of their
new normal. While navigating COVID-19 disruptions, many school
leaders learned how critical it was to maintain transparency with a
regular flow of communication.
“People were really looking for guidance. Information was changing
as we learned more about COVID-19 and how it was impacting
our community. Providing timely and reliable information was key to
keeping everyone headed in the same direction and making things
work as well as they did for us on campus,” explained Grant Azdell,
vice president of Student Aff airs and Dean of Students at Randolph-
Macon College, as well as the founder of Azdell-Morgan Organizational
Management Solution. “We initiated a schedule of weekly
updates to help keep our campus informed. Even if it was to say how
we were doing, we sent it out regularly. We also provided a daily
dashboard with trackable figures to help our community understand
where we stood, as well as how the community around us was doing.”
Using a variety of software and hardware with highly intelligible
capabilities such as Text-to-Speech functionality, MNS technology is
specifically designed to create a rapid, seamless response for unexpected
circumstances like the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Preparing for the unpredictable is a difficult task for any organization,”
said Patrick Dennin, director of education sales at Alertus
Technologies. “Taking a proactive approach towards your mass noti-
fication provides a streamlined activation of organizational communication
in high-pressure scenarios. Quick granular updates to prescripted
messages ensure that your population receives as detailed
information as possible when faced with the unpredictable.”
Leveraging MNS Tools
in a Dispersed Learning Environment
With many colleges and universities still operating in a dispersed environment
at home and on campus, sending mass emails isn’t enough to
stay regularly connected. Emails often get overlooked or lost in a
crowded inbox, and sometimes emails are simply not checked on a
regular basis.
Leveraging additional communication
methods is a practical way to increase communication
redundancy, ensure all notifications
are received, and heighten awareness
more efficiently.
Desktop Alerting
School-wide communication. Desktop alerting
is a great option for frequent communication
— emergency and non-emergency related
— in a hybrid schooling environment. For
instance, teachers could keep students
engaged by sending desktop notifications
about upcoming exams, quizzes, and major
projects. Desktop communications offering
daily affirmations, study and health tips, and
even inspirational quotes could also help keep
everyone motivated while away from campus.
A desktop alerting solution makes it easy
to facilitate timely, school-wide communication
no matter where recipients are located.
Through a full-screen takeover, the message
covers the entire display of the computer
screen so that it is visible, easy-to-read and
captures the attention of the recipient immediately.
Schools could also opt for a partial-screen
computer desktop pop-up, or a less intrusive
ticker alert at the top or bottom of the screen,
for ongoing campus announcements. With a
recipient acknowledgment feature, there is
no need to worry about whether a notification
went through.
Transition to On-site Learning. Preparing
to return to a safe campus environment will
require extensive planning and various
updated protocols.
“With a group that is 44% asymptomatic,
our best screening tools will not detect folks
who are carriers coming on campus,” said
Clifford Anderson, director of public safety
at Anoka Technical College. “Having PPE,
good hygiene plans and social distancing are
game changers regardless of location.”
To keep everyone informed and up to date
about important on-site changes, desktop
alerting could be implemented for social distance
guidelines and reminders, new sanitary
procedures, updated policies and procedures,
and much more prior to the transition
back to campus. Sending frequent desktop
reminders and announcements beforehand,
without oversaturating email inboxes, will
likely help everyone to feel more comfortable
and prepared for the return.
School boards also have the option of
implementing a desktop alerting extension
to accommodate Chrome browsers and
Chromebook computers and tablets. This
solution can easily be installed from the
Chrome Web Store, or school leaders can
push the extension to all school computers
using G Suite or Group Policy.
Mobile Alerting
Given the global spike in cellular network
usage over the past year, mobile app alerts
can provide a more reliable method of sending
and receiving alerts within a matter of
seconds using just a WiFi connection.
Mobile app alerting helps to ensure that
important messages reach an entire school
community, even if anyone is away from
their computers or not checking email.
A high-quality mobile alerting system
provides a platform for authorized safety
personnel to quickly send alerts to faculty,
staff, and students via Android or iOS tablets
or smartphones. These alerts could be
planned ahead of time with preset emergency
templates and edited on the fly to fit the
specific communication or emergency.
Mobile app recipients, on the other hand,
can receive push notifications and quickly
send geo-tagged incident reports to safety
staff as needed.
Overcoming Communication Challenges
High-quality, innovative MNS tools can help
overcome a wide range of school communication
challenges.
In addition to offering more reliable
methods of communication, the advances in
MNS technology make it possible for school
communities to provide both visual and
audible alerting messages to their school
population. That means higher education
institutions would have a higher chance of
reaching everyone on campus, including
those with different auditory or visual ability,
regardless of their physical location.
With a comprehensive, flexible and integrated
communication solution, these visual
and audible alerting messages could be sent
from a single point of activation to every
available communication channel within the
building, such as desktop computers, VoIP
phones, speakers and fire alarm panels. A
multi-layered alerting process is especially
beneficial at a time when limited on-campus
capacity makes it harder for people to look to
their peers for emergency-related information
or acknowledgment.
An effective communication system is key
to keeping organizations connected during
an unpredictable situation. As higher education
institutions move forward with 2021
planning, efficient and rapid communitywide
communication should be a top priority
for a successful school year.
This article originally appeared in the March / April 2021 issue of Campus Security Today.