Emergency notification has become a critical component of every higher education institution's overall emergency plan, as incidents across the country have galvanized campus safety officials to find more ways to notify their campus populations. Emergency notification systems can help get and keep students, faculty members, and staff out of harm's way. There are abundant options in emergency notification. Distinguishing features among offerings include: whether the system is maintained in-house or outsourced; the means used to contact campus community members; whether alerts can be targeted to specific groups; and whether the emergency notification system stands alone or is integrated with other campus systems.