DeKALB — The Department of Police and Public Safety recently began an advertising campaign on social media for the Everbridge ContactBridge app after receiving feedback from students about how frequently they received safety bulletins.

ContactBridge, which launched for NIU in August, is an app on which students can receive safety bulletins in addition to emails and as an alternative to text alerts. NIU Police Chief Thomas Phillips said the app was implemented when university officials upgraded their alert software through Everbridge, which is the security software company they were already using.

Timothy Schwartz, project manager at the Division of Information Technology who worked to implement Everbridge, said NIU’s alert system on the app is only accessible by those connected to the university with an exception for the DeKalb police.

Schwartz said the app has expanded NIU officials’ ability to reach the university community when it comes to safety notifications.

“This is very advantageous for us because it doesn’t require the university to collect cell phone numbers,” Schwartz said. “In the old system, all we could do was text or email or send a phone call to students for safety bulletins. The ContactBridge app [doesn’t require] … a phone number.”

About a month ago, Phillips talked to a student about receiving timely warnings and safety bulletins, after which Phillips saw there were comments on social media about some students not receiving notifications.

Phillips said campus police officials have been sending out notifications when appropriate, but they do not send text messages for all alerts. He said this is because the text alert system is sent out to more than just students — its reach includes faculty, staff and parents or emergency contacts who have signed up for alerts.

“We don’t always want to message everybody for everything,” Phillips said. “So the app allows us to streamline that, and … even if we don’t send the text, you will get it through the app.”

After he received this feedback, Phillips worked with the Division of Marketing and Communications to advertise the app to students on social media. On April 20, campus police posted an advertisement on their Facebook and Twitter pages telling students to download the app.

“Well, we know that oftentimes, students will not check email as frequently as they will social media or phones or an app,” Phillips said. “So we remarketed it so the students knew that the app was there.”

However, some students still don’t know about the app. Ricardo Rodriguez, senior child development major, said he hadn’t heard about the app, but he has been receiving the email safety bulletins.