The current system has proven to be difficult with some messages — such as the "all clear" notice for Tuesday night’s suspicious package — not reaching everyone signed up for the alerts.
The project is a collaboration between the Office of Emergency Services (OES), the UC Santa Cruz Police Department, and the ITS Applications and Project Management group, and is part of the group’s ongoing efforts to ensure a safe and prepared campus and to meet our regulatory requirements under the Clery Act and other state and federal laws.
We are pleased to announce that after an extensive review and procurement process, the campus has selected Everbridge (http://www.everbridge.com) to provide this new system. Everbridge has been in use at UC Riverside for several years and is in use at many other major universities, cities, counties, and private corporations throughout the country. Implementation of the Everbridge system on campus is beginning this week, and the system is expected to be operational by early June.
Everbridge will replace the current system that has been in place since 2008 and will allow for improved functionality and capabilities. Everbridge will be used for the following notification processes:
• Immediate notifications (referred to on campus as CruzAlerts), which are issued during ongoing emergency situations affecting all or part of the campus and where specific actions are required for safety. CruzAlerts are issued via text message and other methods.
• Timely warnings (referred to on campus as Community Crime Bulletins) are issued following the occurrence of specific crimes or patterns of crime as specified in the Clery Act. Timely warnings are more advisory in nature than CruzAlerts and are distributed via campus email.
Implementation of Everbridge will include two phases. In the initial phase, existing contact data will be loaded into the new system and tested to ensure functionality before the current system is deactivated. In advance of this, please update your CruzAlert contact information if necessary by mid-May at http://cruzalert.ucsc.edu. Following the first phase, OES and ITS staff will begin working on upgrades to the current registration process to take advantage of the additional capabilities of Everbridge.
