IU
IU Notify: Get Emergency Alerts
IU Notify is Indiana University's mass communication tool for alerting students, faculty, and staff to immediate dangers and ongoing threats — such as severe weather, hostile intruders, or other threats that could cause harm — delivering messages by cell phone (voice and text), landline, email, digital signs, and some desktop computers (Protect IU).
Read the official policyInstitution
Indiana University
Public R1 · IN
~48,626 studentsIU Notify
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
What IU Notify isreconstructed
IU Notify is Indiana University's mass communication tool for alerting students, faculty, and staff to immediate dangers, such as severe weather, hostile intruders, or ongoing threats that could cause harm.
- — Defines the system's purpose and the kinds of threats it covers. Reproduced from a search-engine snippet of the official IU Notify page; could not be re-verified against the live page (HTTP 403), so not marked verbatim-confirmed.
Definition of an emergencyreconstructed
In general, an emergency is considered to be an ongoing situation that involves death, serious injury, or threat of death or serious injury to people.
- — IU's operating definition of the threshold for an emergency. Not verbatim-confirmed because the official page could not be fetched directly.
Annual testing / Clery amendmentreconstructed
The tests are in line with the requirements outlined in an amendment to the Clery Act, signed by President George W. Bush on August 15, 2008. This act, which focuses on higher education, requires all emergency response and evacuation procedures be tested on an annual basis.
- — Ties IU Notify testing to the 2008 Clery Act amendment and the annual-testing requirement. Not verbatim-confirmed pending direct access to the official page.
Opt-out warningreconstructed
If you choose to opt-out of any IU Notify delivery method, you increase your risk of not being notified.
- — States the consequence of opting out of any delivery channel. Not verbatim-confirmed because the official page could not be fetched directly.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- IU Notify is used to alert the community to immediate dangers (severe weather, hostile intruders) and ongoing threats that could cause harm. In general an emergency is an ongoing situation involving death, serious injury, or threat of death or serious injury to people, and may also include significant damage to university facilities/property/data or significant disruption of university operations.
- Who decides
- IU or campus administration activates the system based on the circumstances. Officials authorized to write, issue, and send public safety advisories, crime notices, and emergency alerts through IU Notify include, but are not limited to, the Indiana University Police Department, Emergency Management, Environmental Health and Safety, and communications/marketing personnel.
- Timeliness standard
- The system is intended to alert the community to immediate dangers; IU or campus administration activates it based on the circumstances of a particular situation. (No specific minute-based timing standard reproduced on the public page; Clery emergency notifications are issued without unreasonable delay upon confirmation.)
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- IUPD on each campus determines case-by-case whether and when to issue a Crime Notice (the federal regulations' "timely warnings") through IU Notify for Clery Act crimes. Emergency notifications cover the broader category of any significant emergency or dangerous situation posing an immediate threat to health or safety. IU's Clery Act Compliance policy is UA-16.
- Testing cadence
- Tested on a recurring basis in line with the 2008 amendment to the Clery Act (signed August 15, 2008), which requires emergency response and evacuation procedures to be tested on an annual basis.
- Scope & limits
- Messages go to current students, faculty, and staff via the phone numbers and email addresses on file. Members may opt out of IU Notify text messages, but IU warns that opting out of any delivery method increases the risk of not being notified of any campus emergency or urgent situation, including campus closure, class cancellation, or a specific threat such as an active shooter.
ChannelsSmsEmailPhone CallDigital SignageDesktop Popup
Analysis
Reading the policy
IU Notify is Indiana University's mass communication tool for alerting students, faculty, and staff to immediate dangers, such as severe weather, hostile intruders, or ongoing threats that could cause harm. The university defines an emergency, in general, as an ongoing situation that involves death, serious injury, or threat of death or serious injury to people, and notes an emergency might also infer significant damage to university facilities, property, or data, or significant disruption of university operations. Messages are sent directly to current students, faculty, and staff using all of the university phone numbers and email addresses currently on file.
Activation rests with university leadership: IU or campus administration will activate the system based on the circumstances of a particular situation. The university's broader notification framework names the officials authorized and responsible to write, issue, and send public safety advisories, crime notices, and emergency alerts through IU Notify, including (but not limited to) the Indiana University Police Department, Emergency Management, Environmental Health and Safety, and communications/marketing personnel. IU Notify reaches the community through cell phones (voice and text), land-line phones, email, digital signs, and some desktop computers.
On Clery framing, IU separates emergency notifications from timely warnings: IUPD on each campus determines, on a case-by-case basis, whether and when to issue a Crime Notice (designated in the federal regulations as "timely warnings") through the IU Notify system to inform the affected campus community about Clery Act crimes. Emergency notifications cover the broader category of any significant emergency or dangerous situation posing an immediate threat to the health or safety of the campus community. IU's Clery Act Compliance policy (UA-16) and the Annual Security and Fire Safety Report document these obligations.
IU Notify is tested on a recurring basis; the university states its tests are in line with the requirements outlined in an amendment to the Clery Act, signed by President George W. Bush on August 15, 2008, which requires all emergency response and evacuation procedures to be tested on an annual basis. On scope and limits, IU permits opting out of IU Notify text messages but warns that opting out of any delivery method increases the risk of not being notified about any campus emergency or urgent situation, including campus closure, class cancellation, or a specific threat such as an active shooter.
Takeaways
Key findings
IU Notify alerts students, faculty, and staff to immediate dangers (severe weather, hostile intruders) and ongoing threats that could cause harm.
IU defines an emergency as an ongoing situation involving death, serious injury, or threat thereof, and possibly significant facility/property/data damage or operational disruption.
IU or campus administration activates the system; authorized issuers include IUPD, Emergency Management, Environmental Health and Safety, and communications/marketing personnel.
Channels are cell phone (voice and text), landline, email, digital signs, and some desktop computers; messages go to all phone numbers and emails on file.
IUPD issues Crime Notices (Clery 'timely warnings') case-by-case through IU Notify; system testing is annual per the 2008 Clery Act amendment; text-message opt-out is permitted but discouraged.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
14 documented times IU’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
+ 6 more in the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Official
- Official
- Clery ASR
- Clery ASR
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningindiana-universityiu-notifyclery
Added 2026-06-21Updated 2026-06-21Via ingestion