What Is IT’s Role During an Emergency?

As new technologies continue to streamline operations and enhance campus security at colleges and universities, CIOs and their IT teams are playing an increasingly central role in crisis management planning and emergency communication efforts.

According to Jim Jorstad, a senior fellow for the Center for Digital Education and retired emeritus interim CIO at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, the work of university IT personnel often involves facilitating communication, through the alert systems that notify students and faculty about everything from closures due to inclement weather to active shooter situations. He said it’s important for universities to have a crisis management plan that’s regularly updated and includes technology and communication strategies created with the input of IT personnel.

“You need to break down your plan into specific steps and protocols,” he said. “The role of IT services in a crisis can involve obtaining, retaining and distributing sensitive data, phone records, cell communications, and collecting and securing technology hardware. IT can be an active player in communicating a crisis event and the actual impact, management and resolution.”

Jorstad said that as universities become increasingly tech-integrated and reliant on alert systems for crisis management, IT leaders should work closely with public information officers and university communications to keep everyone on campus informed of crises and protocols, as well as to ensure security systems are in working order.

“When you look at your campus communications, IT typically manages your university alert systems, probably with your security [personnel] on your campus, as well as your email, campus tech services. … You may have on-site alerts, and your IT team is likely involved with that,” he said. “Your IT department typically will manage your surveillance camera systems too, so I think there’s always going to be a need for IT to be at the table.”

Ron Bergmann, also a senior fellow for the Center for Digital Education, and an IT consultant and former CIO at Lehman College in New York, said universities should look to have “cross-functional” crisis management teams that include presidents and provosts, as well as members of public safety, communications, student affairs, legal and IT departments, to best determine how to use resources and communication planning in crisis response scenarios.

He noted that institutions should have crisis response playbooks, checklists, notification and communication protocols based on lessons learned from previous campus emergencies and crisis scenarios, such as natural disasters, power or network outages, cyber attacks and active shooter situations.

Bergmann added that besides managing security and communication infrastructure, IT can also play an important role in managing and analyzing data relevant to specific situations to inform the planning process.

“You’re not going to be successful if you don’t have robust cross-functional planning, and IT has to be part of that,” he said. “The role of IT can’t be underestimated … having IT help with strategy development, planning and documentation is very much in keeping with how IT should be operated generally.”

Jorstad said universities and IT departments tasked with helping manage alert systems should also consider multiple communication channels, including via email, text messaging, social media, the university’s website and campus information hotlines, in order to reach as many people as possible when urgency is a factor. He said schools shouldn’t rely too heavily on email notifications for these scenarios, adding that text notifications tend to work better for students and personnel who do not check emails regularly.

“I really highly recommend an email integration system where you can add graphics and [see] when people open emails so you get a sense of who is reading this stuff,” he said.

Aside from communication-related efforts, Bergmann said IT teams often have to play an even more hands-on role, as when universities pivoted to and expanded online learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Not everything was an IT issue, but eventually IT had a big role,” he said.

According to Steven Zink, also a senior fellow for the Center for Digital Education, and former IT leader at the University of Nevada-Reno, IT teams have been increasingly tasked with managing technology related to campus surveillance, especially amid growing concerns about school shootings.

“After the Virginia Tech shooting, we on the campuses all became aware of our vulnerability. At that stage in the progress of IT across most campuses, there was still a great deal to be done to enhance infrastructure, which was far more primitive than today,” he said. “We in IT at UNR were intimately involved with the development of campus security and safety and were on the emergency teams, helping to implement more safety-based IT infrastructure.”

Zink said an additional tech layer to consider when it comes to emergency response is the increased use of Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled technologies like “smart lock” systems that can access and lock doors remotely.

“IoT became very important [in recent years] for monitoring lots of different systems around campus,” he said.