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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the Hawk Alert System?
- How does Hawk Alert work?
- How do I sign up to receive Hawk Alerts?
- How do I utilize the system if I am visually
impaired or hearing-impaired?
- Is there a fee for the Hawk Alert System?
- What phone number will I see on my Caller ID when I receive a Hawk Alert? I want to program that number into my phone.
- How does a member of the University community enter contact information so that it can be available for use in emergencies?
- For what types of emergencies will I be notified via this system?
- When entering data for use by the Hawk Alert System, may I include contact information for a spouse or significant other, or parent(s), so that theyíll be alerted during emergencies?
- What types of Hawk Alerts (in terms of media) are available?
- What is the time frame in which I should expect to receive a Hawk Alert?
- How can the Hawk Alert System reach thousands of people in just minutes?
- Who is responsible for declaring an emergency and sending out a Hawk Alert?
- Will this site (http://hawkalert.uiowa.edu) contain information about the emergency?
- If I input my cell phone number, will it be published (i.e., viewable when someone searches for me in the directory via http://www.uiowa.edu/homepage/directories)?
- What should I do if I use my cell phone as my home phone (i.e., I don’t have a landline at home)?
- Will the Hawk Alert vendor share UIís information with anyone?
- What if I want to get text messages instead of, or in addition to, a voice call?
- Does the system support numeric pagers?
- My contact information is up to date, per these instructions. Can I test my ability to be notified to make sure the system will work for me?
- Other members of the University community received emergency (or test) Hawk Alert messages, but I did not. What should I do?
- I work at the hospital on campus and no one here received a recent Hawk Alert. What happened?
- What action should I take if I do receive a Hawk Alert?
- Should I attend classes if there is an extreme weather condition?
- I recently graduated or left the University, and/or no longer wish to receive Hawk Alerts. How can I ensure that I won’t be notified?
- Are University affiliates included in the Hawk Alert System?
- How are duplicate phone numbers handled?
- Who can I contact with additional questions?
- What is the Hawk Alert System?
- The Hawk Alert System notifies the campus
community of threats to physical safety in emergency situations: tornado,
violence, hazardous material incident, etc.
- Notification is by mobile phone (including
text messaging), landline phone, TTY phone (for the hearing-impaired), and/or
e-mail.
- How does Hawk Alert work?
- Hawk Alert allows UI administrators to send
recorded emergency messages (ìHawk Alertsî) to UI students, faculty, and staff
by mobile phone, landline phone, and e-mail within minutes.
- When a threat to the campus community is
identified, Hawk Alert uses contact information from the Universityís
Enterprise Directory (updated via ISIS or Employee Self Service)
to send tens of thousands of messages directly to students, faculty, and
staff.The entire campus community can be notified in about 15 minutes.
- Members of the campus community are notified
by whatever contact information theyíve provided in ISIS or Employee Self Service.
For example, a staff member might be notified simultaneously by e-mail, office
phone, and mobile phone.
- Hawk Alert is built upon the Connect-EDÆ
System, developed specifically for schools, colleges, and universities by The
NTI Group, Inc.
- How do I sign up to receive Hawk Alerts?
- You donít. The system automatically includes
all current students, faculty, and staff located on campus, based on their
presence in the Enterprise Directory.
- However, you should make sure that the
Enterprise Directory has up-to-date information for you. And if you want to be
notified by mobile phone, you'll need to make sure your mobile number is included
in the Enterprise Directory database. If you're a student, you can update the
directory through ISIS; staff and
faculty can update their information using Employee Self Service.
- How do I utilize the system if I am visually
impaired or hearing-impaired?
- The visually impaired will be able to rely
upon the recorded emergency messages by phone.
- The hearing-impaired will be able to rely
upon text messaging and/or their TTY Phone.
- Is there a fee for the Hawk Alert System?
- No. All UI students have already paid for the
service as part of their student computing fee (the annual fee paid to the
notification vendor was $1 per student). Costs for faculty and staff were paid
by ITS.
- Students, faculty, and staff will pay fees to
their mobile phone provider for incoming messages, based on their service
contract.
- What phone number will I see on my Caller ID when I
receive a Hawk Alert? I want to program that number into my phone.
- Hawk
Alert calls will come from 319-384-0911. We recommend that you program a unique
and audible ring tone for calls coming from that number, especially if you
normally have your mobile phone on vibrate mode (for instance, when youíre in
class or meetings). Your mobile carrier should be able to provide you with
instructions on how to do this on your particular phone model.
- How does a member of the University community
enter contact information so that it can be available for use in emergencies?
- Login to ISIS or Employee Self Service and make sure all of your Hawk Alert contact information is up to date. The UI
is encouraging all of its students and employees to add/update their mobile and
other phone numbers in the campus directory as soon as possible. (See http://hawkalert.uiowa.edu for additional information.)
- When entering data for use by the Hawk Alert
System, may I include contact information for a spouse or significant other, or
parent(s), so that theyíll be alerted during emergencies?
- No. Phone numbers for parents and other emergency
contacts (such as a spouse or significant other) are being considered for
utilization in a later phase of implementation.(The University must weigh
the importance of such notifications with the possibility of them affecting our
ability to notify the local University community in as timely a manner as
possible.)
- For what types of emergencies will I be
notified via this system?
- Hawk Alerts will be utilized in situations
that present threats to physical safety: tornadoes, violence, hazardous
material incidents, etc.
- Hawk Alerts are capable of targeting specific
groups of people (e.g., occupants of specific buildings potentially affected by
a hazardous material incident or violence).
- What types
of Hawk Alerts (in terms of media) are available?
- Notification is by mobile phone (including
text messaging), landline phone, TTY phone (for the hearing-impaired), and/or
e-mail. Additionally, the notification vendor is continuously exploring other
communication/notification interfaces, such as instant messaging.
- In conjunction with the Hawk Alert System,
the UI Department of Public Safety has installed a series of notification
towers equipped with sirens and voice alert systems that also will help ensure
that those on campus hear alerts and warnings.
- What is the time
frame in which I should expect to receive a Hawk Alert?
- Circumstances will vary, including the size
of the notification audience, the time of day, etc. However, most Hawk Alerts
by phone should arrive minutes after being initiated.
- E-mail Hawk Alerts serve largely as a
backup/supplemental mechanism and typically take longer to be delivered.
- How can the
Hawk Alert System reach thousands of people in just minutes?
- The notification vendorís mass notification
engine supports the Hawk Alert System. This vendor maintains access to tens of
thousands of phone lines originating from multiple locations throughout the
United States to ensure that its clients' communications are delivered quickly
and efficiently. Moreover, the notification vendor employs sophisticated call
throttling logic to identify the proper schematics needed to deliver calls
based upon whatever congestion local telecommunications providers are
experiencing at the moment calls are being attempted.
- Who is
responsible for declaring an emergency and sending out a Hawk Alert?
- The UI Department of Public Safety usually
will initiate emergency notifications, although the Office of the President and
the Office of University Relations have the authority and ability to issue Hawk
Alerts as well.
- If you have an emergency, or encounter an
emergency situation on campus, you should immediately call 911.
- Will this
site (http://hawkalert.uiowa.edu)
contain information about the emergency?
- No, this site will remain as a help and ìhow
toî site about the system.
- Most people will instinctually look to the main
UI site for information in the event of an emergency, so it makes
the most sense to put any emergency information we have there. The Hawk Alert
site features a link to the main UI site.
- If I input
my mobile phone number, will it be published (i.e., viewable when someone
searches for me in the directory via http://www.uiowa.edu/homepage/directories,
the Herd Book or the University white pages)?
- No. If you input your mobile phone number in
the Mobile Phone field, it will not be viewable by others.
- However, if you input your mobile phone
number in a different field, it may be viewable by others, unless you set the
appropriate publication restrictions in the system. (See next question for
further information.)
- What should
I do if I use my mobile phone as my home phone (i.e., I donít have a landline
at home)?
- You can input your mobile phone number in
both your Residing Phone and Mobile Phone fields.(In an emergency,
duplicate phone numbers are automatically reduced to a single number to be
called by the system, as described below.)
- If you donít want your Residing Phone number
to be published, you should ensure that your publishing ìRestrictionsî are set
appropriately to ìExclude Phoneî or ìExclude Address & Phoneî. (The ìPhoneî
in these restrictions refers to the first ìPhoneî attribute and not the
ìAlternate Phoneî attribute.) The restrictions field appears just below
ìAlternate Phoneî in the viewing screen.
- The bottom line is that your ìResiding Phoneî
number is published (unless you set ìRestrictionsî to exclude it) as your home
phone number, and your Mobile Phone number is not published.
- Will the
Hawk Alert vendor share UIís information with anyone?
- No. The notification vendor does not sell,
lease, share, or rent personally identifiable information (names, addresses,
phone numbers, etc.) to any companies or persons outside of itself or its
service providers.
- What if I
want to get text messages instead of, or in addition to, a voice call?
- Opt
In/Out functionality is available for mobile devices. ìExclude from Hawk Alertî
checkbox attributes allow you to essentially ìturn offî notifications to
specific phone numbers and e-mail addresses, or, in the case of mobile devices,
select only text, only voice, both, or neither.
- Bear
in mind that your mobile carrier may charge you for text messages, depending on
the specifics of your service plan.
- Does the
system support numeric pagers?
- No, the system does not support numeric
pagers at this time. However, the notification vendor is continuously exploring
other communication/notification interfaces.
- My contact
information is up to date, per these instructions.Can I test my ability
to be notified to make sure the system will work for me?
- We do not have the means to provide an
on-demand test notification for individuals at this time. We tested the system
campus-wide in October 2007. We will again be testing the system campus-wide in
early 2008, and thereafter at least at the beginning of every new school year.
- Additionally, we are working with the
notification vendor to provide some form of on-demand test for individual
contacts.
- Other
members of the University community received emergency (or test) Hawk Alert
messages, but I did not. What should I do?
- You should first check your
voicemail/answering machine (mobile, work, and/or home) to ensure that you simply
didnít miss the call(s).
- If messages werenít left on these recording
devices for all of the contact numbers youíve provided, check your contact
information to ensure that it is accurate and up to date.(See http://hawkalert.uiowa.edu for additional information.)
- If your contact information appears to be
correct, you should report that you did not receive the Hawk Alert to the ITS
Help Desk at 319-384-HELP (4357) or its-helpdesk@uiowa.edu.
- NOTE: At the
request of UIHC administrators, landline phones on the UI Hospitals and Clinics
phone system do not receive Hawk Alerts. However, affected UIHC students,
faculty, and staff may receive Hawk Alerts via their mobile phone, home phone,
and/or e-mail addresses if they have registered that information in ISIS or Employee Self Service.
- I work at the
hospital on campus and no one here received a recent Hawk Alert. What happened?
- Landline phones on the UI Hospitals and
Clinics phone system do not receive Hawk Alerts at the request of UIHC
administrators. However, students, faculty, and staff located in a UIHC
facility on campus may receive Hawk Alerts via their mobile phone, home phone,
and/or e-mail addresses if they have registered that information in ISIS or Employee Self Service.
- What action should I take if I do receive a
Hawk Alert?
- Detailed instructions on where to go for
additional information will usually be included in the Hawk Alert.
- Help spread the word by telling those around
you whatís happening ñ word of mouth is an important
form of notification! Notifying others by word of mouth (vs. by phone) leaves
more phone lines open for the system to utilize.
- Should I attend classes if there is an
extreme weather condition?
- The University Operations Manual
Section 22 covers this.
- Individuals
should use good judgment and avoid serious risks in traveling to campus or in
attending classes.
- Individuals also should tune in to major
media outlets, including the main UI website, for information about class
closings during bad weather.
- I recently graduated or left the University,
and/or no longer wish to receive Hawk Alerts.How can I ensure that I
wonít be notified?
- Your status in the Enterprise Directory
dictates whether or not you are in the population set to receive Hawk Alerts in
the event of an emergency, and this status (and thus your presence in the Hawk
Alert System) is updated regularly.
- Only active students, faculty, and staff, who
are normally on campus, are in that population set, so you shouldnít need to
take any action when leaving the University.
- Also, for those active students, faculty, and
staff who might wish to turn off the service (because of travel or other
reasons), ìopt outî
functionality is available. ìExclude from Hawk Alertî checkbox attributes allow
you to essentially ìturn offî notifications to specific phone numbers and e-mail
addresses, or, in the case of mobile devices, select only text, only voice,
both, or neither.
- Are
University affiliates included in the Hawk Alert System?
- As the bulk of affiliates are not physically
located on campus, this population set is presently not included in the Hawk
Alert System.The UI Foundation is the exception to this. Foundation
employees will need to work with their HR representative to add/update their
contact information.
- Mobile phone information might be
particularly important for Foundation employees, because the Foundation
utilizes one main phone number and manual, individual extensions. (Hawk Alert
does not support extensions beyond a 10-digit phone number).Thus, that
main Foundation phone number will only receive one call in an emergency,
because duplicate phone numbers are automatically reduced to a single number to
be called by the system. (See next question for further information.)
- How are
duplicate phone numbers handled?
- Some people may use their mobile phone as
their home phone (i.e., they donít have a landline at home) and thus have the
same phone number listed as their Residing Phone and Mobile Phone.
- Similarly, some phone numbers may be shared
by multiple people (e.g., a shared phone at work, or by roommates in an
apartment).
- To eliminate unnecessary/redundant phone
calls during an emergency, the system will automatically reduce all occurrences
of duplicate phone numbers to single, unique phone numbers, before initiating a
mass notification.
- Who can I
contact with additional questions?