I guess that you don't have to be a real news fan to have heard of the shootings that took place at colleges in the United States and in some other countries as well. This has become a real threat in the past two years, consequently something needed to be done to put a stop to such issues - and here's where the IT departments come in! Sure, you're going to ask 'what can computer geeks do against a frenzied ak47 wielding student?', but things are a bit different than they might seem.

They're surely not going to slap these criminals to death with their keyboards; instead, they are using their computers to improve the communication system. And as you all know, transmitting and receiving messages is crucial in times of crisis. So, with the help of the IT department, educational institutions are heavily upgrading their emergency communications systems, as I've read on NetworkWorld.

From the same site, I found out that they are going to install systems that notify students, faculty teachers and staff of emergencies via multiple channels, such as SMS, automated cell phone calls, IM and e-mails. Also, these will be combined with alarms and sirens, to ensure the efficiency of the security measures.

There's one problem though - these actions will only take place in case something nasty happens. So, say a gunman pulls an AK out of his a*s and starts spraying people; sure…a lot will know of it, and a lot will manage to take cover...but that's only after many of them will die. The measures they're installing are good only to avoid more damage being done, though I think some students might get hurt in the panic that will be created as soon as they're informed about the threat. I'm not saying that this measure is inefficient, rather that more can be done. I think it's more important to prevent such things from happening than to have a good plan to solve them.