---

News Release

Last modified: Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Indiana University launches IU Protect website

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 6, 2011

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University has created a new website that will provide yet another method for students, faculty, staff, parents and other interested parties to receive timely information about safety and security issues on its campuses. The website will present and also send out information about related topics all in one location.

The site, https://protect.iu.edu, will contain alerts related to immediate safety situations as well as news items and blog commentaries by internal and external experts in the areas of public safety and police, emergency preparedness, physical security, environmental health and safety, online security, privacy and emergency preparedness.

"This site is a response to a very real need to collect the whole range of safety and security information -- from prevention to time-critical response -- in one easily accessible portal," said Executive Vice President for University Regional Affairs, Planning and Policy John Applegate. "The portal brings together important resources that existed on numerous IU sites, as well as useful new content."

In addition to accessing the material directly on the website, individuals may also subscribe to various notifications so that they can receive alerts and news items via e-mail or RSS feeds.

"We heard, especially from students and parents, that they would like to see us proactively send information to them about incidents on campus, so they hear about those directly from us instead of initially from the media," said Mark Bruhn, IU's associate vice president for public safety and institutional assurance. "The subscription feature of this site will satisfy that request."

Bruhn is quick to point out that this site will not replace text messages, e-mails and phone calls sent via IU-Notify, the emergency notification system, to on-campus audiences in an emergency situation.

"This is yet another component of our broad matrix of communications methods," he said.

Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to provide their extended contact information -- cell and text numbers especially -- to the IU-Notify system. In some situations, such as for tornado warnings, text messages are the quickest method for notification, along with sirens. Contact information can be added through the IU portal at https://onestart.iu.edu.

IU is interested in evolving the site so that it provides a high level of value. To that end, constructive comments and suggestions may be sent to psia@iu.edu.

---

---