The Georgia Tech Police Department (GTPD) recently sent out on online safety survey to students and faculty members.
The survey, which is completely anonymous, is intended to “gather valuable data” which can be used to enhance safety practices and identify areas for improvement. The survey consists of two parts: demographic information about the survey-taker, and his/her experience with GTPD officers.
“We may know the facts about what we’re doing but eventually it’s the community that tells us how good we’re doing” says GTPD Captain Randy Barrone. “The goal of the survey is to get an accurate representation of the community’s satisfaction with our service so that we can improve accordingly.”
The last survey was conducted in 2013, when GTPD earned the prestigious Law Enforcement Accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). This accreditation requires that Tech conduct such a survey at least once every 3 years.
“Ideally we will conduct this survey about once a year,” said Barrone. “It’s really short and provides valuable feedback to us.”
The survey is sent out to a select group of people which make up about 20% (5800 people) of the campus’s population.
“We also have to accurately represent the campus community and so we coordinate with the Office of Assessment which selects the group of people that is an accurate representation of the campus demographic,” said Barrone.
The survey consists of questions about the individual’s gender, race and ethnicity, level of study, distance of their residence from the campus and whether or not they are international students.
“The answers to these questions will help us identify how we are perceived differently amongst different students. For example, international students may have a different impression of us” said Barrone. “We also coordinate sending out the survey with Institute Communications so that people are not being bombarded with too many surveys at the same time. So far, GTPD has received 10% of the responses. We encourage students and faculty members to fill out the form which should only take about 10 minutes.”
Concurrently, GTPD is also working with SGA on the future of the Rave Guardian App.
“The app’s Alert System and Escort feature were not used very much but we did have success with the Anonymous Texting feature,” said Barrone.
As a result, SGA has put together a group that will decide which safety app will be used starting next year. They will be choosing between the Rave Guardian App and a few other safety apps.