SafetyUMD, an online program designed to ramp up safety awareness around campus and in College Park, was launched on Friday.

The program was proposed by Student Government Association President Jonathan Sachs while he was campaigning for the position last spring.

The program will be entirely online and available to every registered student, and is similar to AlcoholEdu, which was designed to inform incoming freshmen about the dangers of alcohol. However, many students found AlcoholEdu, which was launched in fall 2005, to be cumbersome rather than informative, something that Sachs was well aware of when he developed SafetyUMD.

“One of our primary concerns was that we were working with the same company as AlcoholEdu. But I was very frank with them – I said, ‘Here are the problems and concerns that most people experience with AlcoholEdu, and here is how to fix them,'” Sachs said. “I am confident that SafetyUMD is going to rectify those issues.”

In order to make the program more user-friendly, Sachs has added small yet important features that aim to keep students interested. The presentation allows students to skip around to the parts they feel are most pertinent, and the addition of YouTube videos on basic self-defense adds an interactive feature that was absent in AlcoholEdu.

The most unique part of the program is a nighttime map of College Park, which was difficult to obtain. Sachs called everyone from Google to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in nearby Greenbelt. Finally, Sachs called the police.

“I was skeptical the police would let me fly over campus; I thought it was never going to happen,” Sachs said. “But they let me, and so I went up in the police helicopter and we flew over campus probably 25 times taking pictures.”

The map ended up not being clear enough, but some of the pictures taken from the helicopter were incorporated in the final presentation.

Even with the additions, there are still concerns about the effectiveness of a program based solely on the website. But both Sachs and University Police Spokesman Paul Dillon firmly believe it will make a positive impact.

“I definitely think it will be effective,” Dillon said. “I am realistic; I don’t think every student will take it seriously, but we try to reach as much of the population as we can in order to change their behavior and keep them safer. Even if it only gets 10 percent of people to change their behavior, it is still a success. That is 10 percent more than we had before.”

“My thing is that knowledge is power, and when it comes to safety, my goal is to empower people and keep them safe,” Sachs said. “I firmly believe that this program is going to achieve that.”

Safety remains an important issue around the campus. Sachs hopes the student body will play a large role in improving the program.

“This is version 1, so there are always going to be [things] that aren’t perfect,” Sachs said. “I want to see students take the program; I am interested in hearing student feedback. Everything can get better; why bury your head in the sand?”

Sachs emphasized simplicity with the program. Where AlcoholEdu took several hours and was designed to be completed in multiple sittings, SafetyUMD aims to be concise, well-organized, and short.

“It is only 20 minutes, what else do you have to do for those 20 minutes?” Sachs said. “Just take the time; read through the presentation; and the knowledge that comes from the information will help make College Park safer.”

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