An app is keeping students safer off campus, too, a university manager reports in its first year of use.
Swansea University has students from 139 countries, said Russ Huxtable, head of business continuity and resilience; 2000 of its 18,500 students are from China. At first, their English language skills, and their local knowledge, might be poor. What if they ring Security asking for help? The uni began using the SafeZone product from CriticalArc with the new academic year in September. Thanks to the app, Security knows who they are from their phone, and where they are. Likewise if a student has a disability and calls for help, Security has the information about their special needs to hand, rather than having to take time during the emergency to be told the circumstances. The app also can work as a mass notification system in case of emergency; in multiple languages, such as Mandarin.
To support the university’s duty of care, the app works off campus; for example, transponders are on buses that serve students on, and to and from, campus. Students are able to ‘live track’ a bus, so that rather than wait at a bus stop in the dark, which could put them at risk, they can stay in the warm (whether a pub or club in the city centre, or the library on campus) and information goes straight to their phone into the app, Russ said, and students can pick up the bus as it arrives.
About the app
Chris Keane, sales manager of CriticalArc, also spoke, describing the product, at the Smart Cities 2017 conference in London yesterday. The app is also in use at other UK campuses, such as the University of Kent, and in Newcastle; and US and Australian universities.
More in the March 2017 print issue of Professional Security magazine.
Background
Security at Swansea falls under Estates and Facilities Management. Visit http://www.swansea.ac.uk/estates-and-facilities-management/ourservices/security/.
Picture by Mark Rowe; the guardhouse at the entrance to the Swansea beachfront Singleton campus, off the A4067 main road.
