Preparing for Emergency Communications

Technical tools to facilitate communication during a crisis

David ShaykewichUniversity of Victoria

Judy StewardWestern University

Agenda

• About the University of Victoria

• Communication principles• Technology principles

• Implementations

• UVic Emergency Planning Office

UVic Emergency Planning Office

• Emergency Communications Committee

Acknowledgements

• Larry HinklerAVP University Relations, Virginia Tech

• Chris HawkerDirector, Centre for Risk, Resilience & Renewal, University of Canterbury (NZ)

Emergency communication principles

Emergency communication principles

• In a crisis, be• open• transparent

Emergency communication principles

• Communicate… • as much as possible• as often as possible• what people should do to stay safe

Technical principles

Technical principles

• Simple• Resilient• Redundant

Emergency Online Communications at UVic

Emergency Online Communications at UVic

• Implementations1. ‘Lite’ emergency homepage2. Website ‘Global menu’ advisories3. Emergency Notification System4. Web publishing redundancy

Cascade @ UVic

• Using since 2010• v7.10.2• 290 sites, 920 users• One template• XSLT

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)

• Communications objective:• Make emergency messaging highly

available & resilient to traffic

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)

• Emergency will go viral• “Month’s worth of traffic in a day”

… before wide adoption of Facebook & Twitter

• Rubber-necking gone global (& mobile)

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)

• Technical solution:• Lite emergency, blog-style

homepage

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - Emergency homepage

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - Emergency homepage

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - Emergency homepage

• Separate emergency page• Unique Content Type*• blog styling• emergency content blocks* enables Twitter connector

• Few images• Little processing

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - Emergency homepage

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - Emergency homepage

• In Cascade• During emergency

1. Change content type of homepage2. ‘Mirror’ content of ‘emergency’3. Publish* requires [re]setting page specific blocks/formats

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)

• Communications objectives:• Throughout site, provide consistent,

deep links• Advise campus of issues

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)

• Technical solution:• Global “mega menu”• Advisories in menu

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - UVic.ca global menu

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - UVic.ca global menu

• In Cascade• Global menu is data def page• Each section is a block• Advisory block not populated (or

visible)• Anticipated scenarios blocks prepped

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - UVic.ca global menu

• In Cascade• Template has <?php include ?>• During incident• Add advisory block to global menu page• Publish global menu• Advisory displayed on all pages

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012) - UVic.ca global menu

UVic.ca global menu

UVic.ca global menu

UVic.ca global menu

Emergency Notification System

Emergency Notification System

• Communications objectives:• Alert campus to hazardous situation• Direct people how to act

• Keep people safe

Emergency Notification System

• Technical solution:• Emergency Notification System

(ENS)

ENS Messages – Communication principles

What is an extraordinarily simple communication medium that conveys its message very clearly, concisely and completely?

ENS Messages – Communication principles

• All at once it says…• there is a fire• drop what you’re doing• get out of the building

ENS Messages – Communication principles

• ENS messages are meant to be only slightly more informative than loud red bells

ENS Messages – Communication principles

• Alert. Direct. Inform.

“There is a gas leak in the Biology building. Leave immediately and move away. Check http://uvic.ca/emerg for updates.”

ENS Messages – Technology principles

• Communication channels• Bulk email to Exchange mailboxes• Targeted email• TXT message• VOIP phone screen• VOIP phone speaker broadcast

ENS Messages – Technology principles

• Communication channels• Twitter post• Publish to web (*overrides the global

menu advisory)

ENS Messages – Technology principles

• Built & deployed as atomic web application• Groovy/grails• H2 database• [ no Cascade on this one ]

• deployed to• redundant servers…• in redundant data centres

ENS Messages – Technology principles

• Interface simplicity• used under extreme stress• concise wording• clear, action-oriented buttons• “Send alerts now”

ENS Messages – Technology principles

• Interface simplicity• pre-populate with ‘template’

messages• “training” vs. “emergency” modes

Business Continuity Planning for Web Communications

Business Continuity Planning for Web Communications

• Communications objective:• Our web infrastructure must be

resilient to a crisis and we must be able to continue to update the website.

Business Continuity Planning for Web Communications

• Technical solution:• Clustered web servers• Multiple data centres• Off-site web hosting

Aside: A view into emergency communications planning discussions

Aside: A view into emergency communications planning discussions

• In the white corner: Communications & Marketing

• In the yellow corner: IT Dudes

What if...

“What if the web server dies?”“No problem, we have four of them.”

“What if a data centre dies?”“No problem, we have two of those.”

* HH will provide you with a failover Cascade license

What if...

“What if both data centres die?” “We have a BCP Server at TRU (Kamloops).”

• Single BCP VM for www at TRU (450km away)• Re-point DNS at TRU IP• index.php is ‘emergency’ blog style• 404 page is index.php

“Yeah, but…”

What if...

“If our data centres are down, so is our Cascade. How do we publish to TRU?”

“Hmm.”“The Director of Communications knows how to hand-code HTML and command-

line sftp… Right?”

• “Cascade is awesome. I have an idea!”

-Judy Steward from Western at #CSUC13

Cascade awesomeness

• Web-based interface• “Push” CMS • publishes via SFTP to web servers

• Both UVic and Western use Cascade CMS

Cascade awesomeness

• Reciprocal emergency site CMS hosting• Delegate admin & config• Common end-user interface &

workflow• In-application authentication

Back to the “What ifs...”

“If our data centres are down, our internet connection probably is too. How will we connect to Western’s Cascade to update content?”

“Hmm. Good question.”

• “Cascade is awesome. I have an idea!”

-Judy Steward from Western at #CSUC13

Cascade awesomeness

• Judy & team administer Western’s Cascade

• They can edit the UVic emerg site and publish

• UVic can call Western (land line, cell, satellite?) with request to update content

Start planning today

Start planning today

• Logistics trump technology

Start planning today

• Try out your plans

Conclusions

• Prepare staff to communicate in a crisis, by… • ensuring they have training, instructions

and practice with systems & procedures• Answering the logistics and chain of

command questions now• anticipating scenarios and preparing

messaging now

Conclusions

• Prepare systems for communicating in a crisis, by building… • simple interfaces to• resilient systems that are deployed to• redundant locations

• At UVic, Cascade helps us do just that.

Questions?

• David Shaykewich, University of Victoria• dshaykew@uvic.ca

• Judy Steward, Western University• judy@uwo.ca