Challenges faced during a mass emergency notification system implementation

Abstract

Objectives: Several events on university campuses in recent years have raised awareness about the importance of effective mass emergency notification systems (MENSs). These systems are developed to deliver critical information during life-threatening events. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a MENS implementation.
Design: The Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) installed an MENS to notify the campus community of emergency information via phone, e-mail, short message service text, and instant messaging. Since then, the university has tested the system five times. The elapsed time to contact users and user confirmation rates were evaluated. Additionally, two surveys of 100 system users examined awareness, participation, and satisfaction.
Participants: One hundred randomly selected individuals participated in each survey. Respondents were from across the campus and included faculty, staff, students, and community members who use the system.
Conclusions: System test results indicate low confirmation rates of alerts sent via the MENS, although there was a slight improvement in the latest system test. The reasons behind this ineffectiveness are examined using on-campus surveys. The survey results illustrate that although students tend to recognize the MENS features, the lack of awareness and confidence in the notification systems may be the reason behind the low confirmation rates. Therefore, organizations should pay significant attention to both implementing the right MENS as well as creating awareness and emphasizing its importance.