Every record, in the open

What the dataset contains

2,798 documented incidents at 1,126 U.S. colleges and universities, spanning 1934–2026, containing 6,174 alert messages, of which 1,569 (25%) are confirmed word-for-word from a cited source. Alongside the cases sit 318 published alert-and-warning policy records. Each case documents one incident: the institution, the timeline, every alert message in sequence, casualties where reported, sources for every claim, and an explicit confidence rating.

The distinction the archive never blurs: messages marked verbatim were confirmed against the cited source, exactly as sent, typos preserved; everything else is an honest reconstruction from coverage and is flagged as such, record by record. The full collection and verification pipeline is documented on the methodology page.

Version

v2026.07 · released July 2026 · 2,798 cases at last build

Versions name monthly snapshots (the archive grows continuously, so the case count can rise within a version). Downloads always carry the version and a generation timestamp in their wrapper, so any copy can be traced to its snapshot.

How to cite

To cite the whole archive, use the citation below (add your access date). To cite a single incident, every case page carries its own “Cite this case” card with a per-case citation, BibTeX, and the canonical JSON record.

@misc{campusalertarchive-2026.07,
  title        = {{Campus Alert Archive: a living archive of verbatim U.S. campus emergency alerts}},
  author       = {{Campus Alert Archive}},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {Campus Alert Archive},
  note         = {Version 2026.07, 2,798 cases; verbatim alert texts remain the work of their issuing institutions},
  url          = {https://campusalertarchive.com/}
}

Downloads

Direct, static files: no account, no API, no rate limits. For filtered subsets, chosen columns, or Excel/PDF, use the export menu on the search page (it builds files in your browser from these same artifacts).

License

Compilation, metadata, summaries, and annotations © Campus Alert Archive, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Verbatim alert and policy texts remain the work of their issuing institutions, reproduced from publicly available sources, and are not covered by the CC BY license.

In short: share and adapt the compilation freely with credit (CC BY 4.0). The alert messages themselves are federally mandated public-safety communications, reproduced for research and education; see terms for the full attribution and fair-use statement.

Integrity notes

• Alert texts are preserved exactly as sent, typos and all. Nothing in the canonical records is cleaned up or sanitized.
• The per-case files at /data/case/<slug>.json are byte-exact copies of the canonical records; the flat CSV/spreadsheet exports are projections of them.
• Every record carries per-claim sources and an explicit confidence rating (high: verbatim from an official source; medium: reliable secondary sourcing; low: substantially reconstructed).
• CSV artifacts only: cells beginning with =, +, @, or a tab are prefixed with a single quote to prevent spreadsheet formula injection. JSON is never altered.
• Case URLs are permanent. A case is corrected in place when better sourcing emerges; its lastUpdated stamp moves, its URL never does.
• How cases enter the archive, the validation gates, and who does what (including the AI systems involved) are documented end to end on the methodology page.