Come On.... everybody's doing it....

[McKnife]

The following is an message forwarded to me from a friend who's attending Texas State (formally Southwest)....

Dear Students:



As you know, the mission of Texas State is to provide the highest quality education in a safe, nurturing environment. With that said, appropriate individuals have been re-evaluating security and emergency response plans at the university. Included in this discussion was the need to re-evaluate our Security and Alert Notification System.

Texas State has strengthened its partnership with Mobile Campus as our Emergency Alert Service Provider at no additional cost to Texas State. What does this mean to you? It means that should we ever have cause to notify you with critical information concerning your safety, we will be able to do so immediately by sending a text message to all mobile phones enrolled in the Mobile Campus service.

Notifications, when necessary, will come from the University Police Department or University News Service so that you can be assured that it is of critical importance. Hopefully, we will not need to exceed ten messages a year.



We have agreed that Mobile Campus will never sell or trade your information, nor will they contact you outside of Texas State University’s designated introduction/ orientation periods.



How do you enroll in this service? Just go to https://bobcats.mobilecampus.com/ where you will click the “Join� button to enroll. If you own a mobile phone, we encourage you to take two minutes to enroll. A Mobile Campus Help Line (512-245-7726 or 512-245-7785) is available to assist you if necessary.

We hope that we will not have to use this service, but when your safety is at stake, we can never be too careful. If you have questions, please contact Mobile Campus at the numbers listed above.

Sincerely,

Joanne H. Smith, Ph.D.

Vice President for Student Affairs

It'd be nice if they'd allow concealed carry too.

[Big Calhoun]

My only issue with this has been how is this system going to be administered. To be effective, you would have to mass broadcast this alert. All carriers simply use the TN to transmit a SMS message from phone to phone, but not all carriers have a gateway that allows transmittal via a e-mail address to a phone. I love the intent, but hope they have considered this and are ready to help students figure out whether their service providers have gateways to facilitate sending these messages via e-mail.

[Snake Doctor]

I just signed up for this today, actually. Curious to see how it works. They push the advertising angle in order to cover some of the costs, but in their defense, it is NOT required as part of the service. They claim that unless there are major emergencies, students should receive less than 10 texts per year. The service is free to all students and faculty.

Big Calhoun, are you a fellow Bobcat?

McKinfe, I'm sure your friend told you about the attempted armed robbery on campus last week, right? The University tried to cover it up as best they could, but it came out in the paper. Two students were walking between buildings on campus near the end of the day when a car rolled up and one of the three passengers stepped out with a rifle. He demanded the students' wallets and "everythingthing you got", but they said no and ran off. Funny how I see this as a perfect example of why I should be allowed to carry my handgun on campus and the administration likely sees this as a reason why allowing CHLs is unnecessary. Cést la vie.

[Big Calhoun]

No, I went to school in Yankee Land. Fairliegh Dickinson (aka Fairly Ridiculous) University to be exact. I've just noticed that an increasing number of schools are offering this service, which I think is good. But when thinking about it objectively and understanding SMS/text message technology, I just wander how it's going to me administered in an effective and meaningful manner.

[McKnife]

Snake Doc....

Yes, I did hear about the attempted robbery. Those kids sure had some guts saying no to the driver that had a rifle pointed at 'em. Wonder why they didn't shoot? hmmmmm

I carry all the time on the Texas State campus unless I go inside a building.

If that would have happened to me, I would have unloaded all 14 rounds of .45 Hydrashoks while finding cover.

[Snake Doctor]

Snake Doc....

Yes, I did hear about the attempted robbery. Those kids sure had some guts saying no to the driver that had a rifle pointed at 'em. Wonder why they didn't shoot? hmmmmm

I carry all the time on the Texas State campus unless I go inside a building.

If that would have happened to me, I would have unloaded all 14 rounds of .45 Hydrashoks while finding cover.

I'm not sure what the legality of carry on campus (though not in a building) is, but it would not work for me as I occasionally squeeze in a class or two during my walk around campus time.

[McKnife]

You can't carry on school premises. Soo....

Premises means a building or portion of a building. The term does not include any public or private driveway, street, sidewalk or walkway, parking lot, parking garage, or other parking area.

Don't go in a building, and you're a-okay.





Copied word for word from penal code.

Found here:
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/ftp/forms/ls-16.pdf

Page 45 0f 77 using adobe.

[Boxerrider]

And be sure to check every single text message you get during class just in case somebody is trying to let you know that there is another person in your classroom randomly killing people.

[Sangiovese]

Big Calhoun,

I'm not sure what your concerns are with SMS as the medium. I work in the telcom industry (training technicians to diagnose 3G wireless networks) and I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't be a good system to use.

The mechanics vary by the network in use (GSM, UTRAN, CDMA2000, etc...) but in all cases SMS is reliable and fast. You mention something about email gateways... SMS messaging doesn't have anything to do with email addresses or gateways (SGSN/GSGN). Almost all cell phones sold in the US have SMS capability and every major carrier does.

The only downside I can think of is that SMS messages are "best effort" and possibly may be delayed or not delivered. But in reality, it is not common at all for them to be completely dropped, and delays are typically only a few seconds over higher priority network traffic like voice calls.

Compared to email, text messages are delivered in a comparable amount of time (difference would be a second or two typically). The benefit to SMS is that text messages are typically READ by the recipient far sooner after delivery than emails to mobile devices.

Also, many more phones are SMS capable than email capable.

In a broadcast to 20,000 users, one or two messages might get dropped - but that's still a very good notification. And enough people will read them immediately that word of mouth will alert those who don't.

Uggh, I just saw how long this got... sorry for the sidetrack. Short version: SMS is a reliable notification system :)

[stevie_d_64]

Man, I tell ya...

I'd feel safer already...If I was a student again...