Rave Wireless is upgrading its Rave Guardian program, a two-way safety solution that puts scared students in touch with the right people.
Rave, which started operations in 2005, offers a service that makes campus police aware of students’ locations via their mobile phones. But until recently, only Sprint Nextel Corp. subscribers could use the Guardian service. When a student felt unsafe, they would find the Rave Guardian application on their Sprint Nextel phone and either press the panic button for immediate help or activate a timer until they arrived at their destination safely.
Branching out
Robert Jones, director of marketing for Rave, said initially the feature was all about making campus police aware of a student’s location from their mobile phone. Now, to give non-Sprint Nextel customers the same protection features, Rave is offering a different version of Rave Guardian that can be utilized on any phone with any carrier.
Instead of having the Rave application on the phone’s menu, in moments of fear students can dial a special number set up by Rave that immediately connects to campus police, making it a phone- activated application.
“That’s the big change in the product,” Jones said. “It takes out all the complexity.”
Once connected, a profile will pop up on the campus police computer complete with the student’s photo, address, medical conditions and any other information they elected to provide when signing up; the same panic or timer options are available. The location feature is only available on certain GPS-enabled handsets.
“For phones that don’t have location support, you can record a voice prompt such as ‘I’m leaving the library and I’m heading home’ and this gives them better information to find you,” Jones said.
School angle
But before anyone can take advantage of Rave Guardian, schools must first agree to launch the service. Once a school decides to offer Rave services to students, they tend to market that information through orientations or when students are registering for school to make students aware of the safety options.
Most schools that are involved with Rave were using one of its initial applications, Rave Alert. This outbound system was designed for administrators to send warnings or messages to the student body, whether it is a bomb threat or a weather update. About 50 schools use Rave Alert, but Jones said after the tragedy at Virginia Tech last year, Rave decided to put a stronger emphasis on its personal safety features and Rave Guardian was born. Today, five of the 50 schools involved with Rave offer Guardian to their students.
Students with Sprint Nextel phones who prefer the full application can use it if the school decides to work with the carrier to receive Rave through Sprint Nextel’s Campus Connect program.
App in action
Paul Giardino, a sergeant at Montclair State University in New Jersey, said Montclair State takes advantage of Campus Connect and requires all enrolling students to sign up for Sprint Nextel service to receive the full application. This means students who already had cellphones are out of luck. They either have to switch to Sprint Nextel or use two separate devices.
“There is a core group of people who have legitimate fears for their own safety and those people will use this system,” Giardino said.
Although Giardino has been involved with Rave for many years (he was part of the Rave Guardian initial inception team) he looks forward to the flexibility the new version of Rave Guardian will provide.
“I like the fact that you’re not going to be tied down to one carrier,” he said. “It opens it up to those students who can’t afford a second device and it eliminates the burden of carrying two devices; this will make it easier.”
The safety level will be left up to schools and then to students. Having location services is an obvious benefit that comes along with signing on to services like Sprint Nextel’s Campus Connect, but another feature that schools can offer is Rave Campus, an application through carriers that provides different information such as shuttle tracking, train schedules, the daily cafeteria menu, flashcards, blackboard and many others.
Roberts said that even though the new version of Guardian works regardless of the carriers, Rave is hoping more carriers will share location data over time, allowing all phones the same benefits Sprint Nextel currently offers.
Roberts also said Rave is working to establish a partnership with Verizon Wireless.
