Security at your fingertips
STORY BY MADDY SOMMERVILLE
The Sheridan mobile app, the application found on the Apple Store, Blackberry App World and Google Play Store, now boasts more than 5,000 downloads.
The app has many features including the Javacam, where you can see how many people are in the Tim Hortons lineups on any campus. It also helps students find their way around each campus. But what makes this app so special is the security feature labelled with a small triangle and an exclamation point.
Its interface is simple. There are four buttons and the following message below them about Safe Walk: “Please use the appropriate number above to contact the Safe Walk Service.” Each button connects students to the security number for each campus. With a single touch, you can be on the phone with security as fast as the cellular connection allows.
Victoria Sharp, a Travel and Tourism student had no idea about this function; she’s using it only for the Javacam. “Lately, I haven’t been feeling safe at school. My mother doesn’t like me leaving school late at night either,” she said. “I’m 20 and I have a whistle on my keychain for safety but this makes me feel a lot better.
“I feel like all the students should know about this safety feature and that Sheridan cares about our safety,” said Sharp. “I think we should have flyers around the school about the new [security] feature.”
Michael Burjaw, director of Security, Emergency Planning and Procurement, wants to get information about the app out to students.
“The purpose of this is to contact security. It’s not for emergency use only, it’s for whatever you need to contact security for,” said Burjaw. The app can be used to ask for a SafeWalk escort, or report suspicious activity.
“Anything you need to contact security for is there,” he said.
“If you’re going to be walking through the woods, or walking alone or at night or any time you feel slightly uncomfortable walking,” Burjaw said. “We’d ask you to open that app on your smartphone and you could have the phone in your hand ready to dial security if you felt any misgivings whatsoever if you were walking.”
