URBANA — The emergency Illini-Alert system for the University of Illinois campus will be tested at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday (Aug. 16).

Everyone on the Urbana campus whose email address ends in @illinois.edu should receive an alert during the test. Those who had registered any cellphone numbers or non-university email addresses also should receive an alert during the test.

UI police Lt. Todd Short said the test is being conducted to see how well the emergency alert system operates under a new vendor, Rave Mobile Safety of Massachusetts, which was awarded a two-year contract in late June.

"We are trying to make sure that the email, text, Twitter, Facebook and emergency alert system works in harmony seamlessly," Short said.

While a test in July worked well, according to Short, he said the email component was slow because the university's servers were hit at the same time.

"We want to make sure the improvements we have put in place since then are effective," Short said.

Short said that between 22,000 and 25,000 people should receive a text message on their cellphones, with 87,000 email addresses also receiving the message.

The message alert test will also be sent to campus websites, to the Illini-Alert Facebook account and to the Illini-Alert Twitter account.

"After the test in completed, the vendor will give us reports to see how long it took to deliver the email and text messages," Short said. "We will also be able to tell from the report who got the message and who didn't get it."

Short said people who are not registered for text messaging should not attempt to register now.

"We will provide instructions on how to register after the test," Short said.

The emergency notification system is administered by the Division of Public Safety.

The Facebook page for Illini Alert is http://www.facebook.com/illinialert. The Twitter account can be monitored by following @IlliniAlert.