FDU Alert

Alerts

Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) has the ability to quickly send email, SMS (cell phone) text messages and voice messages to its students, faculty and staff by rapidly mass broadcasting health, safety and informational messages to keep the FDU community informed and safe in times of emergency and other urgent situations. Examples of unforeseen events and disruptions include snow days, floods, power outages, campus incidents and major schedule changes.

You can review and update your contact information by logging into Self-Service or contacting us via email at fdunotify@fdu.edu.

Updates

  • Go to https://selfservice.fdu.edu/ and log in, using your FDU NetID and password. [Note: Self-Service is offline from 10 PM to 3 AM daily. Please log in before or after this time.]
  • Select your status from the menu (Faculty, Employee, Advisor or Student)
  • Click on the FDU Alert link in the menu
  • Review your personal information for accuracy
  • Make any necessary changes
  • Submit

Unexpected Notification

If during a test or actual alert you receive an unexpected notification or you do not understand why you have been included in the FDU Alert System, please contact FDUTAC at fdutac@fdu.edu or 973-443-8822 letting us know how the FDU Alert message reached you (e-mail? phone? text message?) and at what phone number or address. We will let you know whether the notification reached you in error, or whether someone in the FDU community has asked that you be included.

FDU Alert Background

Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) now has the ability to quickly send email, SMS (cell phone) text messages and voice messages to its students, faculty and staff using Send Word Now (see below). SWN provides the technology to rapidly mass broadcast health, safety and informational messages to keep the FDU community informed and safe in times of emergency and other urgent situations. Examples of unforeseen events and disruptions include snow days, floods, power outages, campus incidents and major schedule changes.

Your Options

The effectiveness of any alert system depends upon the accuracy of the contact information in its database. As such, we ask all students, faculty, and staff to update your contact information. At the same time, you have the option to add a parent or significant other to the list so they too will receive the alerts. You also have the ability to make some choices about which notifications you will receive, and which of your contact points will be used. In order to review and maintain your contact information, you must first logon to Self-Service, select the Faculty, Employee, Advisor or Student menu, and then click on the FDU Alert system link. A subsequent screen will allow you to enter personal contact information including work phone, cell phone, SMS (cell phone text) address and non-FDU e-mail.

FDU Alert on a Snow Day

FDU Alert has many components, but only some may be appropriate for a particular circumstance. In the case of a snow alert, we use FDU Alert to send SMS (text messages) and email messages to the entire community. This includes email to non-FDU email accounts and “significant other” SMS and email contacts registered through Self-Service. Common best practice is not to consider a snow alert as a major emergency where we would use the voice capabilities of FDU Alert.

The changes you post to Self-Service take some time to be updated in FDU Alert, so it is important to make your changes as soon as possible. Changes posted in the last day before a snow event, for instance, may not be used in the FDU Alert notification early the next morning.

You are encouraged to review your emergency contact information periodically and update it whenever there is a change. The information you enter is safe and secure, and will not be used for any other purpose. Also note that there is no intent to use this capability for anything other than emergency purposes and very important messages. You will not be ‘spammed’ through this system and you can modify your contact information at anytime by logging onto Self-Service.

This system is designed to alert, warn and inform you of what to do in case of an emergency, a disaster, a crisis or any other situation that affects the FDU community. For example, receiving these alerts and messages could keep you from driving to campus only to find out that a power failure has closed the campus.

For full details on FDU Alert and its role in FDU campus safety planning, please see the FDU Alert Use Policy.

About Our Service Provider

Send Word Now was founded in 2001, by a group of individuals who recognized the need for quick and effective crisis communications after the tragedies of September 11, 2001. After the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the U.S. Pentagon, cell phone traffic became impossibly congested, and Send Word Now has always placed enormous value on multi-modality and redundant communications in building its platform.

Since 2001, as companies have become more concerned about business and operational continuity, regulatory compliance, security and the ability to audit information flow, the need for swift, appropriate, and documented communications has grown ever more urgent. Send Word Now is successfully transforming the way organizations and government agencies are solving the problem of on-demand alerting and incident response for both emergency situations as well as for everyday, time-sensitive organizational communications.

Today, Send Word Now is the leading provider of on-demand alerting and incident response services for both routine and emergency communication. The easy-to-use, web-based emergency notification service is used by government agencies, municipalities, universities, non-profit organizations and businesses around the world to ensure fast, effective, two-way communication in real-time.

FDU Alert Screen on Self-Service

FDU Alert Registration Form at Self-Service allows you to provide five types of information for the system.

Basic contact points: work phone, cell phone, and SMS (short messaging service, typically known as text messaging). All of these are optional.

Contact points for someone else you want notified of FDU emergencies (e.g. parent, spouse, significant other). All of these are optional.

Additional email addresses to which notification should be sent (e.g. addresses you use at yahoo or gmail). All of these are optional.

Checkboxes for two options regarding FDU Alert notifications: (1) Decline non-emergency notifications. Currently, the FDU Alert system is used ONLY for emergency messages. If in future certain non-emergency messages are provided (e.g. rescheduling of important campus events) this checkbox permits you to decline to receive those notifications. (2) Receive notifications for both campuses. By default you receive only the emergency notifications that apply to your home campus. This checkbox allows you to request notification for emergencies at the other New Jersey campus as well.

Checkboxes to decline notification via default contact points. Your FDU email address and home phone are part of FDU records and may not be changed within the FDU Alert system. These checkboxes allow you to turn off FDU Alerts on either or both of these contact points. Each of the two contact points will be used if available during an FDU Alert, unless you check its respective box.

Testing FDU Alert

The FDU Alert system is tested on scheduled and announced occasions. During a test one or more messages are transmitted to every member of the system using every contact point (phone, e-mail, SMS, etc.) that the individual has authorized for FDU Alert.

  • The FDU Alert test message(s) will be prominently marked as tests, and real FDU Alert messages will never include the word test.
  • If you have taken no action whatsoever regarding the FDU Alert system, you are very likely to receive the FDU Alert system test message, because your home phone number and FDU Webmail address are in the FDU Alert system by default.

Before a test

Please note that changes made to your FDU Alert information (phone numbers, e-mail addresses, choices about notification options) in the last three hours before a test are not in effect during a test. Such changes are applied soon after the test and do not need to be re-entered.

You may wish to provide advance notice to other individuals (parent, significant other) whose contact information you have provided in the FDU Alert system, or who share your home phone number.

After a test

If the date and time of the FDU Alert test passes and you do not receive any notification, or if you receive notification only via some of your expected contact points and not all, you should review your FDU Alert status. If your notifications during the test do not match the information you had in place, please use your FDU e-mail account to send an email message to alert@fdu.edu.