At about 3:30 p.m. yesterday, the Division of Public Safety tested its UPenn Alert system — a multi-faceted notification system by which DPS administrators hope to reach as much of the Penn community as possible in case of an emergency.

The system currently consists of three parts: text messaging and e-mail, DPS’ web site and the Penn Siren Outdoor System.

The system sent 74,803 e-mails and text messages to a total of 53,101 recipients, according to DPS spokeswoman Stef Cella.

UPenn Alert was created in August 2007 after the Virginia Tech shootings, according to Mitch Yanak, director of PennComm operations within DPS.

Penn SOS, installed in July and August of this year, is the newest addition to the UPenn Alert system.

Yanak said Penn SOS is designed to compliment the other branches of UPenn Alert by targeting people who are on or near campus but might not be students, faculty or staff, and are not registered to receive emergency notifications.

“We have a huge community,” said Cella, who pointed to visitors at the hospitals and shops on or around campus as examples of people Penn SOS can now notify of an emergency.

Penn SOS utilizes 13 speakers positioned around campus, which can emit both a siren noise and a voice-intelligible message.

DPS Chief of Fire and Emergency Services Eugene Janda said the voice message can be heard almost anywhere near or on campus.

Though Penn SOS is not intended to be audible inside buildings, Janda said DPS is researching in-building speaker systems that could broadcast emergency messages. However, he said, such options are costly.

Penn is the first school in the Philadelphia area to install a siren system capable of disseminating a voice message, according to Jonathan Kassa, executive director of Security on Campus, a nonprofit organization that aims to prevent crime on college campuses nationwide.

However, Kassa added, similar siren systems became popular in the national college public safety landscape after Virginia Tech.

Other schools with siren and voice systems like Penn’s include Loyola College, Purdue University, University of Akron, University of Memphis, U.S. Naval Academy and Vanderbilt University.

Those registered in DPS’ database also received text messages and e-mails as part of the test. Eighty-two percent of students and 45 percent of faculty and staff are registered within the UPenn Alert system — a difference which Yanak attributed to students’ relative savvy working with computers.

Those who are not yet registered can do so on DPS’ web site, publicsafety.upenn.edu.

The e-mails and text messages sent during the test advised students to identify the Shelter-in-Place location in the building they were in at the time of the drill and directed students to DPS’ web site for more information.

Yanak said the web site is the third component of UPenn Alert, designed to tell people what to do after they have been initially notified of an emergency situation.

“The key is that you don’t just rely on one or two means of communication,” Kassa said, since multiple approaches can target different segments of college campuses.

Cella said, in addition to campus-wide tests required by the federal Clery Act, DPS also conducts internal tests of the UPenn Alert system as often as once per week.

Kassa said this move is important, since the systems are useless without people that know how to use them correctly and effectively.

“The more practice, the better,” he added.