In Case of Emergency - Sign up for RazAlert Text Messages

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – If there is an emergency situation on campus, immediate and important information will be sent to the campus community through RazALERT. The system can send an emergency message to everyone on campus in a matter of minutes through text messaging, phone messages and email. 

University Police will conduct a test of the RazALERT system at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24.

To get the message, however, you must be in the system.

Now is a good time for new students, faculty and staff to sign up for RazALERT (it’s pronounced “raise alert” by the way.) It’s also a good time for everyone else on campus to check or update their settings in the system.

Students can sign up or change their settings by logging into ISIS, going to the “Personal Information” section and choosing “Campus Alert Systems” from the drop-down menu.  

Faculty and staff can go to their BASIS accounts and sign up or change their settings through the “My Personal Data” section by clicking on “Addresses, etc.” for their RazALERT options.

Anyone who needs help signing up phones for text or voice mail messages can find it at razalert.uark.edu.

Everyone with a University of Arkansas email address automatically receives RazALERT email messages. However, because of the nature of email and the number of messages being sent – more than 30,000 – email is also the slowest way to get an emergency message.

Text messages are the fastest. But before students, faculty or staff can get RazALERT text messages they have to sign up for them through ISIS or BASIS. They do this by providing phone numbers and essentially giving the university permission to send texts to these numbers. Each student can assign one cell phone to receive text messages; faculty and staff can designate as many as three phones to receive text messages.

A third way to get RazALERT messages are by phone; the system will send recorded phone messages to as many as six land lines or cell phones for students, three for faculty and staff. The voice messages are often received faster than email messages.

Text messages are fast, but they are also short and usually have only basic information. Anyone receiving a RazALERT text can find more details on their voice or email messages – or by going to the university’s emergency website.

The RazALERT system is used to send out three basic kinds of messages:

• RazALERT: sent when there is an imminent threat to the welfare or safety of people on campus. So far most RazALERT messages have been tornado warnings.
• Inclement Weather: sent when classes on campus are canceled or otherwise affected by severe weather, and when offices are closed or opening on a delayed schedule. Campus members must sign up to receive inclement weather messages.
• Outreach: sent when there is significant campus news, and sent only to university email accounts.

RazALERT was designed for the university as part of the Connect-ED communication service from Blackboard Connect Inc. and was installed in 2008. Since then, it has primarily been used during severe weather events, to issue tornado warnings or to notify the campus and offices are affected by snow or ice.