UNO
UNO Emergency Notifications
The University of Nebraska Omaha runs UNO Alert, a Rave Mobile Safety text, phone, and email notification system that automatically includes all current students, faculty, and staff, and distinguishes those emergency notifications from the separate Clery timely warnings UNO issues for ongoing threats to the campus community. UNO upgraded the platform from Omnilert to Rave Mobile Safety in December 2023, adding a companion mobile app with Mobile Blue Light and Chat with Dispatch features.
Read the official policyInstitution
University of Nebraska Omaha
Public R2 · NE
~14,972 studentsUNO Alert
In the policy’s own words
What the policy says
Text opt-in short codeverbatim
To opt-in via text message, text unoalert to 79516. A NetID is not required for this process.
- — The 79516 short code and 'unoalert' keyword, plus the NetID-not-required detail, appeared identically across independent retrievals of UNO's sign-up guidance.
Automatic-inclusion reachreconstructed
The UNO Alert notification system helps reach a broad audience quickly and automatically includes all current students, faculty, and staff.
- — Describes automatic inclusion of the full campus community rather than opt-in-only enrollment; wording varied slightly (a comma-splice versus two sentences) between independent retrievals, so treated as reconstructed rather than byte-for-byte confirmed.
Timely warning / Clery framingreconstructed
Timely warnings are one type of notification you may receive in the event that there is an ongoing threat to the campus community. The federal Clery Act requires colleges and universities to issue timely warnings to the campus community when there is an ongoing threat to public safety.
- — Anchors UNO's timely-warning category to the federal Clery ongoing-threat standard; reconstructed from search-index text since unomaha.edu blocked automated fetching in this environment.
Platform upgrade to Rave Mobile Safetyreconstructed
The latest enhancement introduces RAVE Mobile Safety, a cutting-edge platform that replaces the former Omnilert system.
- — Documents the December 2023 migration from Omnilert to Rave Mobile Safety as the current UNO Alert platform.
At a glance
How this policy works
- When it activates
- UNO Alert emergency notifications are issued for life-threatening or critical events on campus. Timely warnings, a distinct Clery-required category, are issued when there is an ongoing threat to the campus community, per the federal Clery Act's requirement that institutions warn the community of continuing public-safety threats.
- Who decides
- UNO's emergency communications are administered through its Emergency Information / Public Safety office; a single named approving official for triggering UNO Alert was not reproduced verbatim in the public pages reviewed in this session.
- Timeliness standard
- UNO frames timely warnings around the ongoing-threat standard drawn from the federal Clery Act; a specific minutes-based service-level standard for UNO Alert emergency notifications was not confirmed verbatim in the sources reviewed.
- Emergency notification vs. timely warning
- UNO separates UNO Alert (its emergency-notification system for life-threatening or critical events) from timely warnings (issued for an ongoing threat to the campus community under the Clery Act), and publishes both a dedicated emergency-notifications page and an Annual Campus Security and Fire Safety Report.
- Testing cadence
- UNO periodically tests the system, including participating in statewide tornado drills (documented in March 2025); a fixed non-drill testing calendar was not found in the pages reviewed.
- Scope & limits
- All current students, faculty, and staff are automatically included in UNO Alert; recipients choose their preferred channel(s) among text, email, and phone once logged in, and are encouraged to keep contact information current. The 79516 short-code opt-in is a supplementary text-only enrollment path that does not require a NetID.
ChannelsSmsEmailPhone CallWebsiteTwitter XFacebookPush Notification
Analysis
Reading the policy
The University of Nebraska Omaha is a public R2 doctoral university in Omaha whose emergency-communication system is branded UNO Alert. UNO describes the notification system as reaching a broad audience quickly because it automatically includes all current students, faculty, and staff, rather than depending solely on self-registration; recipients can then choose to be notified by text message, email, phone call, or any combination of the three once they log in and set preferences.
For people who prefer to opt in outside the standard university account flow, UNO also publishes a short-code path: texting the keyword "unoalert" to 79516 subscribes a phone for text alerts without requiring a NetID, a detail UNO surfaces specifically in its severe-weather sign-up guidance since weather closures are one of the most frequent uses of the system. The service is free to the UNO community, and the university periodically reminds students, faculty, and staff to verify their contact information so alerts reach current numbers and addresses.
On the Clery side, UNO's emergency notifications page draws an explicit line between UNO Alert emergency notifications and timely warnings: timely warnings are described as one type of notification issued when there is an ongoing threat to the campus community, tracking the federal Clery Act's requirement that colleges and universities issue timely warnings when public safety is threatened by an ongoing danger. UNO's Annual Campus Security and Fire Safety Report is the parallel Clery disclosure document that details UNO's crime statistics and safety policies each October.
Delivery is genuinely multi-channel beyond the core text/phone/email trio: UNO states that during a major campus emergency, administration may use one or more of Facebook and Twitter posts, an all-campus email, an emergency banner on the UNO homepage, or the UNO Alert system itself. The December 2023 platform migration from the older Omnilert system to Rave Mobile Safety was framed by UNO as a safety upgrade, and the UNO Alert mobile app has since added Mobile Blue Light (a virtual escort/panic feature) and Chat with Dispatch. UNO also periodically participates in statewide tests, such as a March 2025 tornado-drill test of the notification system, though a fixed calendar cadence for routine (non-drill) tests was not found in the pages reviewed. Because unomaha.edu returned HTTP 403 to automated fetching in this environment, the excerpts below were reconstructed from search-index snippets of the official pages; two passages (the 79516 opt-in instructions) reproduced identically across independent retrievals and are marked verbatim-confirmed, while passages that varied in wording between retrievals are marked isVerbatimConfirmed: false out of caution.
Takeaways
Key findings
UNO Alert automatically includes all current students, faculty, and staff, with a supplementary text-only opt-in via 'unoalert' to short code 79516 that does not require a NetID.
UNO explicitly separates UNO Alert emergency notifications from Clery timely warnings, which are tied to the federal ongoing-threat standard.
The platform migrated from Omnilert to Rave Mobile Safety in December 2023, adding a mobile app with Mobile Blue Light and Chat with Dispatch features.
Beyond text, email, and phone, UNO may also use Facebook, Twitter, and a homepage emergency banner during major incidents.
UNO periodically tests the system through statewide drills, such as a March 2025 tornado-drill test, though no fixed non-drill testing calendar was found.
Policy, meet practice
When this system actually fired
4 documented times UNO’s alert system was used, from the case archive.
Provenance
Sources
- Official
- Official
- Official
- Official
Tags
policyemergency-notificationtimely-warningclery-actuno-alertravepublic-r2nebraska
Added 2026-07-03Updated 2026-07-03Via ingestion