Notifications cause confusion

[From LOCKDOWN, pg. 1]

“Every time we spend time crafting a message, it’s eating up time to get messages out to our students,” Schleicher said.

Getting the message out to students, according to Schleicher, also depends on how “engaged” the students are about inputting accurate contact information into the Blackboard system.

“60 percent of our students are potentially in the system and the other 40% are completely neglected because they haven’t updated their profiles,” Schleicher said.

A number of students either didn’t receive these notifications or received them at later periods.

“It’s a system we maintain for a lot of services. We’re trying to make it as expedient as possible but there are some latency issues,” Schleicher said.

Possible reasons for this latency, according to Schleicher, are bugs within the system itself, but may also be due to the service speed of certain mobile service providers.

Director of Facilities Paul Nieman, suggests that the latency is due to the high capacity of people the system has to relay information to.

“The number of contacts that the system was attempting to contact via text, via cell phone, via landline phone was 54,223,” Nieman said.

The Center for Sciences building, known for its bad reception, has thick walls which make it difficult to receive mobile cellular service. Of the potential 60% registered onto Blackboard, those taking a class in the building during an emergency are less likely to receive a notification through mobile phone.

“I think Pierce has been the most aggressive campus of having security presentations and other events to make everyone from faculty, staff and students aware of what protocols we have in place,” Schleicher said. Safety meetings throughout the year as well as pamphlets and booklets given out throughout campus are some ways safety instruction is distributed. Attempting to remedy the lack of reception in the Center for Sciences, hardline phones were installed and briefing faculty on safety protocol at the beginning of the semester was implemented.

“Today’s example,” Schleicher said of Wednesday’s incident, “was one of the best where you have an incident you don’t have a lot of credible information initially. I’m trying to focus on the potential issue and then communicate out to other individuals.”

But getting the word out isn’t easy, he said.

“Those are things we are trying to do in a short time frame, so that was a challenge for us,” Schleicher said. “I think we handled it the way we intended to handle it. Thankfully it went well in terms of no threat was present on campus and no one was injured.”

Meet Your Mentors: Faculty Exhibition [9/26-10/30]

Members of the Art and Architecture Department will host a Faculty Exhibit at the Pierce College Art Gallery on the Art Hill. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, Sept. 25 at 6 PM in Art Room 3300. For more information on the exhibition or to schedule a tour, please contact Monika Del Bosque, Pierce College Gallery Director and Associate Professor of Art. She can be reached at 818-7102262 or delbosmm@piercecollege. edu.

Science, Imaging and Astronomy Expo [10/10]

The SIA Expo returns to Pierce College, co-hosted with Woodland Hills Camera & Telescope.

In its 2013 debut, the SIA Expo was a succes with 1200 attendees.

People attending can meet representatives from Auto Tech, Engine Emission, Engineering Design, Machine Shop, Media Arts, Nanotech, Nursing, Industrial Tech and Pre-Vet, and view a student Chemistry exhibit.

Student projects from the Robotics Club, photography department and industrial technology will be on display.

New this year is an exhibit on Zooniverse, the online community of citizen volunteers who are crowdsourcing scientific research.

Experience “Hubble Vision II” and “Voyager Encounters” shows in Pierce College’s 50-seat Planetarium for a $3 donation. Students at any grade level, friends and families are encouraged to attend, and everyone will get a free raffle ticket for a chance to win valuable prizes of professional level telescopes and cameras. Bring any student ID to get free food. Visit www.siaexpo.com for the latest details on these and more stellar activities for the science and astronomy minded.