Student email, emergency alerts and mobile Web help campus community 'Stay Connected'

Published: 1/23/2012

Schoolcraft College is urging students, faculty and staff to “Stay Connected” by offering four digital services to the college community.

SCmail student email accounts are available as an opt-in for students enrolled in credit classes. In Spring Semester 2012, student email will become mandatory for all credit students.
 
The SCalerts emergency notification system delivers text and email messages about weather-related college closings and other emergencies affecting Schoolcraft and the surrounding area.
 
SCreport is an online reporting tool for students, faculty and staff. It can be used to submit an academic appeal or express a concern about academic integrity; report concerning or threatening behavior; or report an incident that is of general concern to the submitter. Reports can be submitted with a name or anonymously.
 
SCmobile is a Web site delivering student-oriented content to mobile devices. The site can be bookmarked on a smart phone or other mobile device; bookmarking places an icon on the screen, giving the user quick access to this content.
 
To raise awareness of these services, the college is running a “Stay Connected” campaign targeting students, faculty and staff. Information and login links for the systems can be found at www.schoolcraft.edu/stayconnected.
 
Systems allow for timeliness, follow up and efficiency
  
SCalerts are provided through Rave Mobile Safety, a provider of emergency notification and safety software. “We reviewed a variety of services before selecting Rave,” said John Monge, Schoolcraft’s Director of Campus Security Police. “The product meets all of our needs. It enables us to deliver messages very quickly to a variety of platforms and mobile devices.”
 
Rave performed well for Schoolcraft in the first-ever nationwide test of the federal government’s Emergency Alert System, held Nov. 9. Several college employees had signed up to help test Rave, and they successfully received the test message.
 
The online incident reporting form offered through SCreport is powered by Maxient software. “Students, faculty and staff are sometimes not sure how to report incidents on campus, or how to alert us to a student who may be struggling with personal or academic issues,” said Dean of Student Services Cheryl Hagen. “Maxient gives the campus community the ability to make a report, and gives administrators a view of the total person. This enables us to keep the campus safe, and to design interventions that support student success.”
 
SCmail is powered by Google’s Gmail platform, which has been used successfully by numerous colleges and universities. “Gmail has a lot of benefits that are attractive to a college,” said Chief Information Officer Frank Wiltrakis. “It is free of advertising, has strong spam filters, and it syncs with a variety of mobile devices. And Google products are already familiar to many of our students.”
 
Like other mobile Web sites, SCmobile does not replicate the entire Web site experience on the mobile device. Instead, it retrieves selected content from the main Web site and packages it for delivery to the mobile device. The content on SCmobile targets students who want to stay in touch with campus happenings.
 
All four systems are available now. Sign up for SCalerts and SCmail is free and takes only a few minutes. The SCreport incident reporting form is available online. Accessing SCmobile involves navigating to a page and then bookmarking that page. All of the systems can be accessed at www.schoolcraft.edu/stayconnected.

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