Abstract
The technical portion of this project highlights a gap between institutional communication and student action during crises. This study explores opportunities for improved alignment between the operational intent of the University of Virginia's Emergency Management (EM) system and student response behavior. Specifically, our team aimed to investigate opportunities for improvement of EM's operations and their alert system, UV A Alerts, in order to increase the safety of students during emergencies. To do so, we first conducted a literature review on emergency management strategies at other universities, consulted with an expert on emergency and disaster response, and verified capabilities of EM over numerous meetings with the office’s leadership. Then, we facilitated a focus group study with eight students to inform the design of a university-wide survey, gathering input from ~580 students on the alert system and the reputation of EM more broadly. While the collection of input from students extended beyond active attacker emergencies, the focus of this work centered on improving management and communication during active attacks. Throughout study design and recommendation development, our team used systems engineering principles across user experience and system evaluation domains to inform decisions. Statistical analysis of survey responses across demographic subgroups revealed significant patterns and variations in how students perceive EM and its alert messages. Highlights include that the majority of participants prefer frequent alerts with clear expectations on when a next update should arrive, wider geographical coverage, and more focus on factual information rather than provision of comfort. Ultimately, study results suggest that implementing our recommendations for advancement of EM communication will improve student trust in the system and thus enhance overall student safety during emergencies.
The STS portion of this project frames EM as a sociotechnical problem, aiming to answer: How can the University of Virginia’s emergency alert system be optimized to improve student trust, engagement, and safety outcomes during campus crises? Through literature review, interviews for context, and personal experiences through the past 4 years, this paper aims to holistically understand the intricate relationships across UV A during emergencies. Communities such as students, faculty, technology, and UV A EM will be organized through Actor Network Theory (ANT). Emergency response at universities is produced by interactions among institutional actors, communication technologies, and student social practices. This analysis will discover failures or inconsistencies that emerge from misalignments within this network rather than from individual actors. This paper explains each actor individually and the relationships they must maintain in order to produce safe results for the university. Each actor has its own objectives, constraints, and skills that allow it to be successful or challenged. The analysis from ANT helps explain why overlay systems often fail to produce behavioral compliance as they do not truly integrate with what that community needs. It goes on to produce recommendations to improve the lack of feedback loops and remedy misalignment across actors. Overall, aiming to provide a holistic understanding and guidance for the relationships across UV A that create a safer campus during emergencies. Through a technical and sociotechnical lens, both papers address a core problem of disconnect between institutional intent and student response during emergencies. The technical analysis aims to address what is specifically failing in practice, between confused messaging, timing, or trust erosion. The STS portion aims to analyze why these breakdowns occur and understanding the root causation is due to misalignment across actors. Both of these papers' findings support each other to create clarity about the misalignments across actors. For example, the survey results in the technical report confirmed that trust, communication preferences, and external sources impact how students interact or comply with UV A EM. In reverse, the STS lens helps contextualize the findings from the technical study. Between both papers, it diagnoses the problem, explains the context, and provides solutions. Overall aiming to create a more complete understanding of how to improve emergency communication and student safety.
