No problems with text alerts after latest Virginia Tech shootings

Students received alerts throughout the day.

Virginia Tech students said they received a nearly constant stream of text message and eMail updates from school officials after a gunman killed a campus police officer and himself Thursday afternoon.

Virginia Tech’s homepage provided updated information about the shootings, the suspect, and what students and faculty members should do while police scour the campus. Students and the campus’s student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, tweeted updates throughout the afternoon.

At 2:59 p.m., about three hours after the first reports of a police officer shot to death during a routine traffic stop, final exams were postponed. Exams were slated to start Dec. 9. Police would not confirm if the second body found in a nearby parking lot known as “the cage” was that of the gunman’s; however, a law enforcement official who had knowledge of the case and spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that the gunman was believed to be dead.…Read More

Company claim: Emergency alerts get to students in 20 seconds

Universities have failed in recent years to send alerts to students.

A two-inch keychain might be the solution for campus officials hoping to avoid public scrutiny next time their emergency text messages hit a logjam and don’t reach student and faculty cell phones.

IntelliGuard Systems’ RavenAlert, which provides the campus community with a keychain that rings when it receives an emergency message, avoids delays by sending thousands of messages over a private wireless network.

So instead of connecting to a myriad of mobile devices – all with different internet protocol addresses – the RavenAlert system sends the college’s alert to thousands of keychains with the same address.…Read More