IU-Notify will allow university and campus leaders to reach thousands of students in minutes 
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. --[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NETWORK]-- September 25, 2007 - Indiana University announced it has selected the Connect-ED® communication service by the NTI Group Inc. (NTI) to provide a notification system that will be capable of reaching faculty, students and staff on all eight campuses within minutes. The service, part of the broader "IU-Notify" initiative, will be implemented with limited capabilities in October, tested in phases through fall, and should be fully functional by the end of the calendar year.
"This system provides a much-needed tool to reach the entire IU community with important information on short notice," said IU President Michael A. McRobbie. "It can be used for everything from weather delays to other administrative news. It is essential that we be able to notify students immediately in emergency situations because up-to-date communication helps minimize the spread of misinformation, maintain order and provide direction."
"We recognized the important role that immediate communication plays in keeping members of our community safe and have been looking at these services for some time. Of course, the post-event reports of the Virginia Tech incident absolutely served to verify our thinking and speed our process," said Mark Bruhn, associate vice president, information and infrastructure assurance. "As a main component of our critical incident communications plan, IU-Notify with its multimodal capabilities will allow us to keep individuals informed, whether they are in their dorms or offices, sitting in front of their computers, or on their way to class."
Bruhn added, "This system allows IU to load contact information for all students, faculty, staff and for others who may be physically on one of our campuses for an extended period, such as IU Foundation employees, volunteer faculty, visiting scholars, and contract employees. We also provide for parents who may wish to subscribe to certain types of communications." The data will come from central student, employee and faculty databases, and from an online self-service form in IU's OneStart portal (onestart.iu.edu). The online form is scheduled for release in early October. A strategy/policy group has been formed to address issues, policies, standards and procedures for IU-Notify.
About Indiana University
Indiana University enrolls 99,122 undergraduate and graduate students on campuses in Bloomington, Indianapolis, New Albany, South Bend, Kokomo, Fort Wayne, Richmond and Gary. It employs more than 16,000 faculty and staff.
Source: Vendor Press Release
NTI Group Announces Indiana University Selects Connect-ED(R) for Campus-Notification
