Schools Strengthen Safety with uTip Text Message Crime Tips from e2Campus

Students and others in the community now able to text a tip from a cell phone

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Sep 21, 2010, 12:48 ET

LEESBURG, Va., Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Omnilert®, LLC, maker of e2Campus®, the leading unified emergency notification system for education, today announced a new crime fighting tool called "uTip" that enables members of the community to send in crime tips via SMS text messages. The service instantly delivers anonymous tips to campus security or police officers' mobile phones and email. Southeastern Illinois College was the first to sign up for the new service.

"We were looking for alternative ways to connect with our students, and for them to connect with us," said Dr. Sarah Bond, Executive Dean of Student Affairs at Southeastern Illinois College. "It has become quite evident that many of today's students are glued to their cell phones when not in class, so uTip seems like a great fit. If a student witnesses a suspicious activity or is in trouble but can't call, we want them to be able to contact us and texting provides an additional option."

The new uTip service allows anyone in the community to communicate directly with school representatives simply by sending an SMS text message from their standard cell phone. Tipsters do not need to be registered with the e2Campus emergency notification system for uTip to work, so anyone in the surrounding neighborhoods or town can text a tip using the service. Schools can setup the service for either anonymous alerts or auditable alerts. Each school can choose which version of the service best meets their policy guidelines.

The school's community can use the service to report suspicious activities that they see on campus, such as theft or vandalism. Communication can be configured to be anonymous, allowing uTipsters to send in tips without the fear or risk of retribution. uTip can also be used to help prevent crimes on campus by reporting incidents before they escalate, and by helping campus safety spot suspicious individuals.

The uTip service is available today for current e2Campus customers. Introductory pricing starts at $195 a year for a campus population of 5,000 or less. For pricing specific to your school, please contact [email protected] or call 800-936-3525 x1.

About e2Campus

Used by more than 750 schools around the country, e2Campus is the first and most trusted unified emergency notification system in education. It is an award-winning, CAP compliant, Tier-1 notification system that enables non-technical staff to send custom or predefined messages instantly to the campus community for improved crisis communications. There is no traditional software to install, no hardware to buy and no additional phone lines needed. Through one unified interface, e2Campus instantly and simultaneously sends multimodal alerts to a subscriber's mobile phone (via SMS text message), landline phone (via voice message), computer desktop (pop-up), and e-mail accounts, plus school infrastructure such as PA systems, digital signage, alert beacons, Facebook Pages, Twitter Accounts, relevant school Web pages, and other endpoints the school may have in place. To learn more, visit http://www.e2Campus.com.

About Omnilert

Omnilert, LLC is the leading provider of unified mass notification systems for better business continuity, emergency management, and routine communication. The easy-to-use, self-service, Web-based system enables a single person to communicate timely information to thousands of people anywhere, anytime, on any device or service. The award-winning company's 3,000 clients include the U.S. Army, Boeing, Mazda, sanofi-aventis, Arizona State University, Penn State, YMCA, American Red Cross, and UNICEF. Omnilert solutions are sold under the brand names e2Campus, Amerilert, and RainedOut. The privately held company is headquartered in Leesburg, Va., and at http://www.omnilert.com online.

SOURCE Omnilert, LLC