Ball State University's text alert system is one step closer to functioning, but the 17 minutes it took for 4,000 phones to receive messages is too long. Hopefully, the university will productively spend time until the next test working out bugs as quickly as they can so this can be a practical form of communication. Right now, it takes too long to be effective.
This time-lag is one of the things that must be fixed before the next test. University officials estimate it will take a month before Ball State is ready to retest the alert system. If it takes that long to work out all the bugs and get the alerts out faster, that's fine. Use the time wisely. But Ball State needs to work quickly so testing can be pushed up if the alerts are ready within a month. And the university needs to make the system work so it isn't always being tested.
During 17 minutes, a storm could turn deadly. Someone on a shooting rampage could continue a shooting spree across campus. Any emergency situation can mutate into a serious, perhaps dangerous, crisis in those 17 minutes. Although some students will receive their text alerts within a few minutes, others will have to wait more than a quarter of an hour to learn of a problem.
Disasters, dangerous situations and emergencies don't work on schedules. Ball State doesn't want something to happen before the tests are completed.
Events like the shootings at Virginia Tech do happen. The 18,000 students, plus the hundreds of faculty and staff working at Ball State, need to be safe and informed. These texts are a great step toward better communication, but they won't be good enough until we know they work.
Tests are essential, and so is fixing problems, but when it comes to the safety of this campus community, action needs to happen quickly. Decrease the time it takes to receive the messages, fix any glitches or other problems and test it again so we know the text alerts are a reliable and timely source of information.
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