The Janet educational and research network has signed a
deal with messaging firm PageOne to supply
SMS text services to network
users.
Janet said, “The familiar text format of SMS offers a capability
for rapid communications in a huge range of educational
scenarios.”
The new SMS service is expected to go live this summer.
Participating Janet organisations will administer and regulate
their own usage of the texting facilities, and receive specific
billing and auditing reports.
By buying such texting services through Janet, users will
benefit from bulk buying economies of scale.
The proposed service will support customisation and branding
options, with tools and messages clearly being associated with the
organisations deploying them.
SMS functionality will be integrated into existing MIS and VLE
systems used within the Janet community, allowing these resources
to be fully used in an integrated communications strategy.
Messages will be prepared from templates using mail merge
functions, and scheduled for delivery at appropriate times.
Potential recipients may be grouped into relevant groups for
bulk delivery of messages, such as “all staff” or “second-year law
students”, for instance.
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>>
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