Spring Break
Anatomy of the delayed snow alert
Derek Simons
Issue date: 3/10/08 Section: News
John Allen, director of University Communications, furnished a detailed explanation of February's snow day UMKC Alert! mishap to the UMKC Faculty Senate last Tuesday.
Many people on Feb. 6 received messages of the school closing hours after they had already left home. (See "UMKC Alert!" - Feb. 18.)
Allen started his discourse with a slight understatement.
"Many of us would probably agree [the alert] had some dissatisfying results," he said.
He explained several people in both Communications and Information Services (IS) have the administrator privileges to launch the alert. They have all done training on campus and from home.
Allen said they try to have the decision made by 5 a.m., but that day the phone call arrived at 6 a.m.
"I was just heading out the door," Allen said. "The decision was made to cancel classes, but keep the campus open."
He said the process was started, but a few minutes later another phone call arrived saying to close the campus.
"We had to scramble and undo what we had done," he said.
Electronic Communications manager Wes Hudelson handled the process from home, which involves putting information into three successive screens, a minute-long job, according to Allen. As a back up, there is also a call center to alert directly by phone.
"Wes got the first screen done, the second screen and everything was working fine," Allen said. "He went to the third screen and it kicked him back to the first and he had to re-enter the information. That was problem number one."
Apperently, Hudelson repeated this process three or four times before deciding to phone the call center.
"We were not made aware that there was an update in the software of 3n [National Notification Network, the service provider], which meant that we probably needed to check our Java updates on our machines," Allen said.
3n has now committed to making sure all of its clients know when there is an upgrade and what needs to be done, according to Allen.
Many people on Feb. 6 received messages of the school closing hours after they had already left home. (See "UMKC Alert!" - Feb. 18.)
Allen started his discourse with a slight understatement.
"Many of us would probably agree [the alert] had some dissatisfying results," he said.
He explained several people in both Communications and Information Services (IS) have the administrator privileges to launch the alert. They have all done training on campus and from home.
Allen said they try to have the decision made by 5 a.m., but that day the phone call arrived at 6 a.m.
"I was just heading out the door," Allen said. "The decision was made to cancel classes, but keep the campus open."
He said the process was started, but a few minutes later another phone call arrived saying to close the campus.
"We had to scramble and undo what we had done," he said.
Electronic Communications manager Wes Hudelson handled the process from home, which involves putting information into three successive screens, a minute-long job, according to Allen. As a back up, there is also a call center to alert directly by phone.
"Wes got the first screen done, the second screen and everything was working fine," Allen said. "He went to the third screen and it kicked him back to the first and he had to re-enter the information. That was problem number one."
Apperently, Hudelson repeated this process three or four times before deciding to phone the call center.
"We were not made aware that there was an update in the software of 3n [National Notification Network, the service provider], which meant that we probably needed to check our Java updates on our machines," Allen said.
3n has now committed to making sure all of its clients know when there is an upgrade and what needs to be done, according to Allen.
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