On Thursday, Oct. 18, Fullerton College participated in the Great Shakeout Drill. During the drill the Fullerton College communications department tested out, for the first time, a new and improved mass emergency communication system, Rave Communications.
Rave Communications is a mass emergency communication system that is used to communicate with students on campus in case of an emergency. The school sent out emails, text messages, and voice messages to students at 8:42 a.m., the day of the drill.
The switch showed great improvement from the previous system by Regroup, due its reliability and effective communication. Although the campus communications for this drill were prompt, FC is still determining if in fact Rave will maintain its reliability in the near future.
“It appeared the delivery time for the messages was pretty quick. However, I need to get a read to see if people received the three messages,” said Lisa Mcpheron, Director of Communications.
Mcpheron added that even though most students and faculty got all three messages, some email messages were sent to a spam folder.
According to statistics Mcpheron stated, “22,702 students and faculty received text messages; 25,936 received emails; and 23,102 received voice messages. Emails appeared to be the main mode of communication with the new system.”
A unique quality about Rave’s communication system is that the students’ ability to respond to text messages.
“[There were] 38 responses from people and they varied drastically,” said Mcpheron. Some of the messages included: “I’m at home chief” and “So wassup bro.”
Mcpheron acknowledged that some students replied in Spanish, prompting her to assess what other languages the messages comes in so that all students will receive the communication.
As North Orange County Continuing Education, and Cypress College joined in for the Great Shake Out Drill, some students who are not fluent in English, or do not speak English as their first language, did not understand the messages.
All three schools, Cypress College,North Orange County Continuing Education (NOCE) and Fullerton College tested out Rave. The department has an ongoing contract with the communication company and are in still in the early stages of assessing delivery times.
Moving forward, Rave Communications will continue to be used due to the current contract it has with FC.
