Students and Staff sign up for campus alert system

12 March 2010

Over 49,000 Monash students and staff have registered to receive important alert text messages from the University via their mobile phones.

The service, which is currently only available to our Australian campuses, helps provide important information quickly by SMS text to participating students and staff via their mobile phones. This is particularly useful in the event of a campus emergency, or where services might be interrupted, or it becomes necessary to restrict access to a campus or facility. These short text alerts can be sent to thousands of mobile phones in a matter of seconds.

All messages sent are clearly identified as being from Monash University to ensure their integrity.

Since commencing in 2008 there has been a steady increase in the level of participation and currently 44,400 students and 4800 staff from our Australian campuses are registered for the service.

To be part of the service students and staff need to enter their mobile phone number into their secure online student or staff records.

Monash Vice-President (Administration) Peter Marshall said, "The SMS Alert service makes it possible for our university to communicate important messages to thousands of people within seconds. The alerts provide a brief message and refer you to the university's webpage where more detailed information will be available".

"The website will act as a primary source of information as it can be regularly updated as further news comes to hand," Mr Marshall said.

Today all those registered on the service should receive a short alert message as part of the systems routine testing.

If you believe you are registered but didn't receive a test text alert, please first check your details online.

To update your details or sign up for the SMS message alert service visit the my.monash portal for students or the Monash Employee Self Service (ESS) for staff.

For any inquiries please contact Ian Henderson at Ian.Henderson@adm.monash.edu.au.