The Undergraduate Student Government tabled legislation that would endorse Information Technology Services’ opt-out initiative for Alert BG at Monday night’s meeting.

USG members will discuss the legislation this week and will vote to possibly endorse the initiative next Monday.

“It gives us a chance to go over any final edits,” said Internal Affairs Chair Ben Goldsberry.

Alert BG is a text message and email alert system in which University police send messages to warn the campus community of emergencies. Students automatically receive emails, but they must opt-in to receive texts.

The legislation supports ITS’ opt-out initiative, meaning students would automatically be signed-up for the texts unless they choose not to be.

Goldsberry said the opt-out system is an important public safety initiative.

“With the opt-in, you get a lot of students who don’t know about it,” Goldsberry said. “…[an opt-out initiative] benefits all the students on campus.”

Chris Wammes, senior applications developer in Information Technology Services, also presented a plan for an updated MyBGSU web portal at the meeting.

The first pilot, which is for faculty and staff, will begin Thursday and the second pilot, which is open to as many as 1,000 student volunteers, will begin Feb. 25. The University plans to implement the new portal in fall.

“I think it’s an incredible opportunity,” Goldsberry said. “The revamp will help with a lot of the innovative technology.”

The current portal’s old software has trouble supporting all browsers and doesn’t integrate technology well, such as smartphones, Goldsberry said. The new portal will remedy these issues, he said.